


FaceTime Mishap

by Lady_LB



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Knows, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Identity Reveal, Phone Calls & Telephones, Plagg Being Plagg, Technology, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_LB/pseuds/Lady_LB
Summary: Marinette forgets to hang up – and Adrien is wondering why there is a floating cookie in her room.(kwami’s don’t appear on cameras after all…)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, all characters belong the gifted writers and owners of Miraculous Ladybug.  
> The program FaceTime is owned by it's respective owner (Apple I think.) and is referenced because it's a popular and well known video chat application.

“It’s been great talking with you Adrien. Thank you for helping me with the physics homework tonight.” Marinette smiled sweetly on the screen of his phone.

Thank goodness for Facetime, he’d hardly ever get to see his friends without it he realized.

“No problem Mari, I’m always willing to help you, just give me a call.” Adrien glanced at the clock on his wall, there was only another ten minutes until patrol, he knew he should probably hang up soon. “I enjoyed talking with you too.” He gave her a genuine smile.

“Yeah.” She said shyly as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Too bad Alya and Nino couldn’t join us to study huh?”

Adrien chuckled, “I’m beginning to think that they want some more alone time together Mari, although I love hanging out with you guys…” He used his hands to wave off the idea that he didn’t mind that it was just them tonight, “they just make a great couple don’t they.”

“Yeah.” She blinked and sighed, “I’m happy for them really, it’s just…”

“Just what Mari?”

“It’s just, that sometimes, it’s hard not to get jealous?” She hesitantly admitted.

Adrien smiled and nodded, “I feel the same way Marinette. To have someone special like that,” he looked off to the side and wistfully sighed with a slight blush, “to have both a best friend and a girlfriend wrapped up in one? Ahh, sometimes I think having a relationship like that is only a dream.” His heart ached as he wiped the back of his neck wistfully.

Adrien’s mind briefly drifted to his long-time crush on the beautiful and brave Ladybug, his best friend and partner. He knew she didn’t have feelings for him beyond their current relationship since there was another boy in her life that had somehow miraculously captured her heart. He’d been trying to let go of the idea of loving her beyond being a friend, but it hasn’t really been working. Although, he’s found that he’s enjoyed speaking with Marinette more lately, she reminded him a lot of his Lady, but ahh, it was still hard to move on, as if he ever could.

Mari made it hard for him because having her in his life made him wish that he could move on and maybe, just maybe give her a chance. Not like his father would like him starting to date or anything.

“Oh?” Marinette finally replied, “Adrien, you know that you’re a sweetheart and someday, I just know that you’ll find someone like that.” She swallowed as she earnestly and sweetly told him, “it’s not a dream, not for someone as wonderful as you, I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks Mari. You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

She blushed a little not even daring to believe it, “not really, but thank you for the compliment.”

“You deserve it.”

“Well,” she sighed, “I’ve got some work to get done and I’ve got to charge my phone, so, I’m sorry but I have to go Adrien.” She frowned slightly before she added almost sadly. “I’ve really enjoyed talking with you.”

“Me too Marinette. Until next time?”

“Sure, see you at school tomorrow.”

“Okay, see you then. Bye!”

“Bye!” She waved at her phone and then made a quick sweeping motion and the scene on the screen changed as she docked her phone to charge. Apparently, Marinette had her phone’s rear camera facing the ladder in her room and she had accidently activated it instead of hanging up.

The trouble was, something strange was going on because in the middle of her room there was a floating... cookie?

Adrien was about to tell Marinette that she didn’t hang up but only switched the view to her rear-view camera when he realized that cookies shouldn’t float.

Plagg, noticing Adrien’s delay in getting him his cheese dinner before patrol as he glanced at the screen and snorted quietly as he flew up and covered Adrien’s mouth quickly as he whispered, “don’t you dare say a thing! Let’s just let this play out, shall we?” The devious little kwami emphasized the last two words with a grin.

In the background a sweet little voice could be heard, “Marinette! I’m so proud of you! You didn’t stutter even once!”

Marinette giggled, “yeah Tikki. I’m finally getting comfortable enough to talk to him like a normal human being…”

Adrien reached for his phone to disconnect, he knew he shouldn’t be listening in, even if Marinette had Tikki in the background there and hadn’t told him about her during their conversation, he had Plagg after all doing the exact same thing.

Plagg however flew down and slapped his hand as he whispered irritably, “don’t you dare! Just sit back and enjoy the show! Trust me.”

Adrien knew he should hang up, but he was curious and you know what they say about cats and he was partially cat at least now, so he listened to his kwami and paid attention to the slowly disappearing floating cookie.

“Still, I’m so proud of you Marinette.” The little voice that must belong to Tikki gushed.

Adrien sat back and rubbed his hand that stung from Plagg’s earlier slap as Marinette went on as she laughed sweetly, “thanks Tikki. At least I didn’t mess up and call him hot stuff again!”

Adrien swallowed disbelievingly as the cookie on the screen dipped in the air and a large piece of it went missing, almost like someone had taken a bite out of it.

“You have to admit that was pretty funny Marinette.” The sweet little voice answered as she then sighed, “although I wish you’d reconsider giving Chat Noir a chance.”

Adrien knew Marinette and Chat Noir were at best distant friends, did Mari have a crush on his alter ego at some point?

“Oh Tikki,” Marinette exhaled a soft breath, “you know that I like Chat and honestly, sometimes I feel like he’s right up there next to him and it feels like my heart is trying to tear itself apart over two different guys. It feels wrong Tikki, and well, Adrien was there first.”

Adrien’s eyes bugged out, Marinette liked him too? First?

“And Ladybug has to put her duties above her heart.” Tikki commented just before the last part of the cookie disappeared in midair.

Adrien froze as things began to click. “No way.” He whispered.

Plagg was cackling quietly to himself behind him, thoroughly enjoying the show.

“I know it’s hard Marinette, but someday things will work out.” Tikki commented.

Marinette sighed, “yeah. It’s just so difficult. On one hand I’ve got one wonderful guy that is so sweet and kind that I’d just die to even just go out with on one little official date, but he isn’t interested in me like that and frankly, it’s been hard waiting for him to notice me and on the other hand I’ve got another wonderful guy who is also sweet and kind and has a frighteningly similar sense of humor to my father’s that is only interested in my alter ego and maybe pays too much attention to her. An Alter ego who can’t let something like love get in the way of her duties to Paris and its people.”

There was a loud flopping sound in the back ground as if Marinette had thrown herself on that chaise of hers, “I don’t know Tikki, I know I can’t have a relationship as Ladybug because well, I’m Ladybug. But sometimes, I don’t know Tikki, it’s so hard to be alone.”

Adrien swallowed. “Lady…bug?” he mouthed the words.

Tikki twittered, “oh Marinette. Things will work out. Now we really need to get going. You’re going to be late for patrol.”

Marinette snickered too, “yeah. I can’t leave the other guy in my life waiting, can I?”

Tikki laughed loudly, “nope! Just say the words Marinette!”

“Tikki! Spots on!” Marinette’s voice called out as a pink light flashed across the screen and there was a brief glimpse of none other than Ladybug flying up the ladder in the background towards Marinette’s skylight.

Plagg floated down, swiped his paw across the screen and hung up the call.

“Do I need to explain any of that to you lover boy?” Plagg teased after a minute with a wide grin on his face as he watched Adrien’s new reality dawn on his face.

Adrien shook his head slightly, blinking briefly as his eyes were still wide with shock as he took in all this information as he muttered, “Plagg, I’m in trouble.”


	2. This isn’t as bad as it looks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien reacts...

“Plagg! What am I gonna do!” Adrien stood up and started to pace around his room, his arms flying around him as he gestured wildly left and right. “She, they, she didn’t want me to know! I snooped! I pried! The girl of my dreams is never going to forgive me! I was supposed to wait until she was ready to tell me! I wasn’t supposed to see that!”

Plagg snickered, “sure you weren’t.”

“Plagg that’s not helping! Can’t you see I’m having sort of a crisis here?”

“Sure.” His kwami rolled the word off his tongue as he rolled his eyes.

“Come on Plagg! What am I supposed to do?” Adrien demanded as he grabbed his kwami and held him tight. “What should I DO?!”

“Ugh kid, this isn’t as bad as it looks.” Plagg deadpanned.

“Yes, it is! My Lady is the amazing Marinette Dupain-Cheng! She’s my good friend!” Adrien’s eyes bulged, “this just had to happen when she finally started talking to me! Plagg! I thought I was getting somewhere with Marinette!”

Plagg grinned, “yeah, go on!”

“She’ll never forgive me and we’ll never be really good friends Plagg!”

“Really?” Plagg looked at his chosen like he had just served him pasteurized cheese past it’s due date.

“Is that all you’ve got to say Adrien? I thought you loved Ladybug?”

“Yes Plagg! The best relationships start as just friends, don’t they? I mean come on Plagg! Haven’t you noticed that I’ve been paying more attention to Marinette? She’s just so… so Awesome! But now I know that I don’t have a chance!”

“Excuse me? Were you listening to that conversation?” Plagg asked.

Adrien threw Plagg up into the air and flung himself on his bed in despair.

Plagg just floated nearby watching Adrien’s reaction with an amused smirk.

“But now that I’ve betrayed her and I know she’s my Lady, I’ll never get a chance to be more than good friends! She’ll never trust me again!”

“Uhh, Adrien,” Plagg sighed “I think I ought to point out two things.”

“Ugh, Fine.” Adrien got up and pulled out another piece of cheese for Plagg and tossed it to him. “Here you go.”

Plagg caught it in disbelief, “What?”

“You were going to ask for Camembert weren’t you? Not like my personal crises matter to you.” Adrien huffed as he sat down.

“Adrien, you think that you’re out of stock of your favorite cheese and you don’t think I’d sympathize?” Plagg threw his piece of heaven into the air and swallowed it whole. “Not that I don’t mind the extra cheesiness, but I’m hurt.”

“Plagg, you don’t get it. Ladybug likes some other boy…” Adrien’s face went blank as he thought about it and then he beamed, “Wait, Marinette, Ladybug, she just called me hot stuff, didn’t she Plagg?”

“Yeah, and…”

He hopped up onto his feet eagerly, “I’m the other boy! Aren’t I Plagg?!”

Plagg rolled his eyes. “Now he gets it.”

“She’s been stuttering around me because she likes me!” He jumped up for joy! “Marinette! Ladybug! She likes me!”

“And...?” Plagg urged causing Adrien to pause as he tried to remember exactly what the Marinette and Tikki had said. His eyes got even bigger as he smirked to himself, “and she’s been struggling not to have feelings for Chat Noir too! She likes both sides of me! Oh, Plagg! This day couldn’t get any better!”

Plagg snorted, “oh, it can.”

“Plagg, the girl of my dreams IS the girl of my DREAMS! How can it get any better?”

“I don’t even know which one you were talking about!” Plagg smirked, “But I’ll tell you how it can get better, for a price.”

Adrien grinned maniacally as he pulled out his phone and pulled up a website dedicated to Camembert specialties. “Whatever you want buddy!”

“Yeah, that.” Plagg waved his little arms at the phone, “ALL of that.”

“You’ve got it, now tell me how this can get any better?”

“Order first… then I’ll tell you.”

“Aww come on Plagg! You know I’m good for it!”

“Order it first or I won’t tell you! You’ll forget once I tell you anyway.”

“Fine.”

Adrien spent a minute loading the cart on his phone and checking out. “See, here’s the confirmation page Plagg, it’ll be here tomorrow, now how in the world can this situation get any better?”

“Glad we’re on the same page Adrien.” Plagg uncharacteristically congratulated. “But…”

“But what Plagg? Now Marinette and I can be together!”

Plagg rolled his eyes again, “yeah. But now you’re late for patrol.”

“Agh!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably be taking about a week or 2 between postings for this fict, till it's done. I'm trying not to get into the characters heads like I usually do in my other stories to keep the conversations rolling along here.


	3. Just Calm Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plagg attempts to get Adrien to focus and understand something...

“Wait Kid!” Plagg flew into Adrien’s face as he was about to call out his transformation cat-ch phrase. “Before you do ANYTHING, let me tell you something.” Plagg was trying to speak calmly for once because he could tell that Adrien was about to explode. “Let me tell you how this can get even better.” His smirk was as big as it had ever been.

“But I’ve got to go Plagg! I’ve never let My Bugaboo down, I’m hardly ever late! And I’m SO late!” Adrien was still a bit frantic.

“You may want to just call and cancel, because I’ve got to tell you this.” Plagg watched as Adrien just stood there shaking in anticipation.

“I can’t do that Plagg! I’ve got to see her! I’ve… I’ve got to tell her!” 

“Well then first you need to calm down! Take a deep breath! You’re giving ME the jitters just looking at you and I’m a cat!”

Adrien took a deep and theatric breath, “ok. I’m fine now.” His hands were still shaking.

Plagg rolled his eyes. “Come on Adrien, you can do better than that.”

Adrien took another deep breath and let it out slowly, finally calming down for the most part. “Alright Plagg, what’s so important that we have to be even later.”

“How do you think that happened?” Plagg calmly and uncharacteristically asked.

“What?”

“How do you think seeing that conversation happened?”

“Marinette just hit the wrong button, then put her phone on the charger and she never hung up, that’s it.”

Plagg looked at Adrien incredulously, “you’ve got to be kidding me, right?”

“No, that’s all that happened.” Adrien shrugged.

“And what about the flying cookie huh?”

“Oh, that must have been her kwami, Tikki right? You don’t show up on cameras, do you?”

“No, we don’t.” Plagg responded as he looked at his little paws, “you know what? I think my little sugarcube planned all of this.”

“WHAT!” Adrien shrieked.

“Yeah, she can be pretty devious when she wants to be.” Plagg looked downright sappy for a moment before shaking his head and shrugging, “or at least she let it happen and then took advantage of the situation.”

“Huh? Wait, now… WHY would she do that?”

“Well, my sugarcube and I…”

“Your sugarcube, Plagg you never told me you had a girlfriend. You sly dog.” Adrien teased.

“Don’t disrespect me Adrien.” Plagg threatened as he wagged a little paw at Adrien before he sighed, “kwami’s have more everlasting relationships than just as mere girlfriends and boyfriends. Especially for me and Tikki, Master Fu would even say that we’re more like soulmates.” He boasted. "It's like my love for cheese, it never ends."

Adrien finally chuckled and gave a small grin before he answered, “okay, but were you going somewhere with all of this, we’re really late for patrol.” Adrien sighed as he rubbed his forehead.

“Five minutes isn’t late, yet. Now, how many rear facing cameras face the center of the room to watch a floating cookie disappear into thin air Adrien? Think about it.”

Adrien thought about it, “You’re right, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“Especially since Tikki probably heard us on the other side of the line, kwami’s have excellent hearing by the way and she could have hung up the phone for Marinette without any of us being the wiser, but she put on that little show instead.”

“But why would Tikki do that?”

“Well,” Plagg hedged, “we kind have of been missing each other and decided that maybe we should just let things happen instead of trying to help cover up for you.”

“Cover up for us? What do you mean?”

“Oh please, like Tikki hasn’t had to cover up for Marinette before. And Tikki’s the one that stopped me from saying anything when you de-transformed together during that Dark Owl thing ages ago!”

“Well, Ladybug asked me not to look.” Adrien pouted.

“Well, you should have looked, then we wouldn’t have lost so much time together.”

“Now hold it Plagg, are you talking about Marinette and I or about you and your sugarcube?” He teased once more.

“Ugh. Stop with the mushiness.” Plagg shook his head. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that we decided no more cover ups this morning.”

“This morning?”

Plagg looked at him in shock, “you really don’t think that I stick around in your stinky bag during all those boring classes all day, do you?”

“But you’re the one that stinks it up with your stinky cheese!”

“That’s not the point!” Plagg grinned widely as he bashfully admitted, “sugarcube just smells better okay.”

Adrien snorted, “Okay Plagg.” He waited a moment while Plagg wouldn’t meet his eyes, “out with the rest of it now.”

“Fine. If Tikki asks, you withheld my cheese as torture to get me to talk. We ah, so we agreed not to cover for either of you anymore.”

Adrien nodded, “go on.”

“Then we kind of boasted about who was going to mess up first.”

“Really Plagg?”

“And then we boasted about whose holder would freak out the most…”

“Uh huh. So, you’re going to embarrass me by telling them how I reacted and then claim that you won.”

“E, yeah, maybe not. You actually handled it better than I thought you would.”

“That!” Adrien waved his arm around the room where he was freaking out earlier, “was handling it?”

Plagg snickered, “Maybe. Tikki thinks once Marinette figures out that you’re Adrien she’ll freak out like that, then she’ll go into shock and faint.”

“She likes me that much?” Adrien’s smirk reached across his whole face.

“Apparently.” Plagg shrugged. “Of course, it’s going to be fun to watch you tell Ladybug that you know, or do you want to wait and tell your Princess?”

“I could always tell her as Adrien you know.” Adrien shrugged.

“You don’t want to kill the girl right?” Plagg answered with a raised eyebrow.

Adrien frowned, “it’s not like the end of the world Plagg.”

“She’d probably just zone out about it and think she was dreaming… unless…”

“Unless what?” Adrien was really curious now.

“Unless after you told her you did something mushy, oh I don’t know, something like give her a long and mushy kiss!” Plagg then started to cackle at the thought.

“Plagg! I’m not g-go-going to k-kiss Ma-Marinette unless I ask her and she says y-yes! That’s what a gentleman would do!” Adrien looked overwhelmed at the very idea, but then he shyly grinned and then shook his head at himself, “don’t give me bad ideas Plagg!”

Plagg held still and then just stared at the boy as he said, “wuss.”

“Ugh! You take all the romance out of these things Plagg!”

“Since when do you know anything about romance? You don’t even give the girl Camembert!” Plagg protested.

“Look, let’s just get back on topic,” Looking at the clock Adrien noted, “well, we’re fifteen minutes late for patrol now. I don’t want to cancel, I just don’t know what to do right now, I mean, what do I say to Marinette?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

“You haven’t told me anything!” Adrien accused.

Plagg grinned wickedly and then only answered with the word “Precisely!”


	4. Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plagg has some suggestions on how to tell Ladybug that Adrien and Chat Noir now know who she is under the mask.

“It’s all about how you word things kid.” Plagg grinned.

“What?” Adrien cocked his head, “What are you trying to say?”

“You’re worried that your Bugaboo will be upset right?” 

“Of course, but eventually she’ll be happy once she finds out who I am right?” 

“You could do this three, maybe four ways.” Plagg smirked.

“I’m not following.” Adrien looked at Plagg like he was plotting something, which of course, he was.

“First the most obvious and most painful answer.” Plagg rolled his eyes, “Tell her the truth, that you know who she is etc., as soon as you see her and then tell her HOW it happened.”

“She won’t be happy no matter how I tell her Plagg.” Adrien shook his head. “That’s probably the last thing that I want to do, but I need to tell her somehow, she hates liars after all.”

Plagg looked at him with a blank face, “another option is that you could just ask her if she’s ever had to discipline her kwami.”

“What? Why would I want to do that?  I mean come on Plagg, how would that help in telling her what happened? Not that I haven’t been tempted to punish you sometimes.” He glared at his kawmi just a little, “of course this conversation is making me think about it right now.”

Plagg cackled, “but that’s the beauty of it! Tell her I did something oh I don’t know, something that I needed to be punished for, something bad enough that is worse than taking away my favorite cheese.”

“I’m not following.” Adrien shook his head again.

“Find out what she would do, then have her ask Tikki about it later tonight and to take it easy on her when she finds out what we, I mean, what Tikki did.”

“How can Tikki tell her what she did without telling her that she helped to reveal Marinette to Adrien and Chat Noir?”

“Oh, my Sugarcube is one smart cookie.” Plagg looked at Adrien expectantly but Adrien just gave him a blank face, waiting for him to continue. Plagg groaned, “if you knew Tikki you’d be dying laughing at that pun.”

“Why is letting Tikki get in trouble and letting Marinette know that Chat Noir knows who she is any better? She’d still get upset.”

“It’s letting her get used to the idea of you knowing her secret identity without knowing that you’re Adrien, which Tikki can’t tell her without your express permission. Plus, it’s kind of a payback for Tikki for you being put into this awkward position of telling your crush that you’re her crush.”

Adrien grinned at that but then frowned.

“So, you’re saying that I should let your girlfriend take the rap. That’s despicable Plagg and you know it.” Adrien scolded.

“Hey, it’s the best way to get out of telling Marinette yourself the whole story, but it would teach Tikki not to overdo it, not that I’m complaining but it would also let her take some of the blame off of you, ya know? Besides, Marinette would take it easy on her, I’m sure.” Plagg shrugged, “It’s probably the easiest way to do it and it will keep you from a position where you’d probably be tempted to reveal yourself right away.”

“It still sounds awful.” Adrien thought about it as he tapped his chin, “although it is tempting.”

Plagg answered as a smile grew on his face, “Of course the worst thing to do is to try to pretend like you don’t know anything and to play along. It might drive Tikki nuts that it didn’t work, of course you’d have to act like nothing has changed, which considering it has to do with your girlfriend, well, I don’t know if that would work. You’d probably wind up calling pigtails Princess in front of that Ladyblogger or just hugging her outright.”

Adrien smirked at that idea. “That would be fun, but it really doesn’t give her a lot of time to process all of this. I’ve finally calmed down but it’s taken me nearly half an hour!”

“Yeah, and pigtails is much more highly strung. Especially when it comes to you.”

“Really?” Adrien looked beyond the moon.

“Yep, so what are you going to do about it loverboy?”

Adrien blushed before he was able to compose himself again, “Are those my only choices?”

“Well, so far you have explaining what happened and revealing yourself, blaming it on the kwami in some shape or form or doing nothing. I guess with the later option you could say that you’d give her some hints about your identity until she gets it etc. Just so you don’t feel so guilty.”

Plagg then had a wicked grin cross his face, “or we could just do the same thing in reverse?”

“I don’t follow you Plagg, what are you saying?”

“You call Marinette before your next patrol, accidentally forget to hang up on her and let the camera catch us talking to each other and then you transform into Chat Noir. Then we can see how she reacts that way. If she can’t handle it we could always just brush it off as her hallucinating or something.”

“Uh huh, and you don’t think that Marinette will be upset when I tell her what happened? It’ll come out eventually! She’d skin me alive if I don’t get this right!”

“Hey, it’s up to you. I vote driving Tikki nuts by saying nothing and then if she doesn’t tell Marinette what’s up, then we pull the reverse thing. Or maybe a bit of all of that.” Plagg brushed it off, “of course it all depends on your acting skills, think you can do it kid?”

Adrien rolled his eyes, “if I can act like I enjoy modeling swimsuits in the middle of the winter, I think I can pull that off, if I wanted to.”

Adrien sighed, “I’ve got to think about it Plagg. Hopefully I’ll know what I’m going to do when I finally see my Bugaboo, we may be late for patrol, but we ought to get going.” His smile at the thought of seeing his Lady, his Marinette, could outshine the sun.

“Here we go again.” Plagg whined. “Just turn down that megawatt smile, she’ll know something is up for sure!”

Adrien smirked as he rolled his eyes and shook his head, “never mind that now. Plagg, claws out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I haven't started on the next chapter yet at all. But I wanted to see what my readers think about how this story ought to go, honestly I kind of agree with Plagg but I don't see cannon Adrien/Chat Noir pulling it off that well. So Let's put it to a vote. Tell me in the comments what you think Adrien should do.  
> Last day to vote is Oct 10, 2018, when I hope to get started on writing the next chapter (or few depends on the results) and then I'll try to post the next chapter within a week after that.  
> ………..  
> 1\. Tell the honest truth & reveal himself immediately ( I know this would probably be cannon but the rest are fun options.)  
> 2\. Ask Ladybug how to deal with a deceptive kwami, let Tikki begin the explanation etc. Chat Noir would actually say I KNOW what Tikki did and so does she, ask her about it etc.  
> 3\. Have Chat Noir and Adrien pretend that nothing has happened and let Tikki go crazy about it.  
> 4\. Let Adrien drop hints to Marinette that he is Chat Noir (after doing 2 or 3)  
> 5\. Eventually do a reverse reveal on Facetime somehow.  
> 6\. Almost all of the above (not 1) (Plagg's choice - let the hilarity ensue)  
> 7\. Author's choice


	5. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chat Noir goes to meet Marinette, no, Ladybug on her patrol.   
> Things get awkward as he decides how to go forward. Should he tell her that Tikki helped to reveal her secret identity to his civilian self using the Facetime app or will he do something else?
> 
> Warning: References and spoilers to the episode Frozer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there are references & spoilers to the episode Frozer here so if you haven't seen it, you may want to wait to read more until after you've seen it, I've tried to keep this pretty close to cannon, but obviously with a one sided reveal it's not. However, you could just pretend that this isn't based on cannon at all and it's an Alternate Universe or something, yeah, that's the ticket, let's go with that!
> 
> Also, a big Thank You to everyone that voted and helped me steer this story a little bit, although I have added a few tidbits to make it more interesting, I'm not going to reveal the final results so readers won't know what to expect. Let's just say that so far I have also made the first draft of chapters 6 & 7 and it there will probably be more after that lol. So much for my attempt at a one shot!
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Adrien didn’t have much trouble finding Marinette, no, Ladybug, with his communicator on his baton. Good thing they had GPS.

Ah, but he used it selfishly today. He knew the route they normally took for patrol and seeing that she had started without him, he went to meet up with her. Landing near where her path would cross, he sat on the ledge of a roof and started to dream about his Lady, his Marinette, he sighed, _she likes me!_ He thought in disbelief. _Now I jut have to not mess this up._

He never thought he could be more in love with Ladybug, but now that she was Marinette and he had to admit, he’d tried to keep her as ‘just a friend’ for so long, it was now overwhelming to realize how much he cared about her civilian self.

He knew that if she had EVER shown an interest in him, he’d have tried to change the target of his affections from Ladybug to her, she was just so AMAZING and the only competition to the spotted heroine in his life really. He just thought that she only saw him as a friend too, a bond that he had been too afraid to test or break by asking her out and ruining their friendship.

Sure, other girls flirted with him, Kagami had even kissed him on the cheek once.

Oh no, he just remembered that he had asked Marinette to help him woo Kagami!

How could he be such an idiot!?!

He flopped down to lie down on the roof in mental agony, why did he DO that!?!

His memory betrayed him too, as he was getting into the car that day after Kagami had surprised him, he’d glanced over to see Marinette kissing Luka on the cheek too!

Feeling his world collapse just a little bit, he had to remind himself, it was just on the cheek, just like the kiss Kagami gave him, it was a friendly kiss, it didn’t mean anything. He took a deep breath and sat up to watch for his Lady, um, Marinette.

_Those kisses didn’t mean anything, right?_

Marinette was probably turning Luka down, but she must have seen Kagami kiss him too!

Ugh! Why did he do all that? Why had he let Kagami kiss him? Did he mislead her, he did tell her that he wasn’t giving up on the girl he liked, right?

But Marinette had seen them together, she must have.

That’s why she lost her confidence and didn’t agree to go out with just the two of them, together. He was so lame.

He ran his gloved hand through his untamed locks and groaned.

Why didn’t he invite her to go skating with just him, not just suggest it and then let her think that he meant as a group of couples! Like he could ever be truly be part of a couple that didn’t include her.

Plagg said that she loved him right? She said so herself right? She’d called him ‘hot stuff’ sometime before, right? He blushed deeply at the thought, but why? Why? Why had he never noticed? Was he blind?

_“Yes, yes you are. Now stop it Adrien, stop doubting yourself and pay attention!”_ Plagg spoke to him in his head, it wasn’t something his kwami did often, okay hardly ever, besides laughing when he slipped up. It was strange having a conscience that took pleasure in your goof ups, but still, it was nice to know that Plagg cared about Adrien in his own way.

Now that he thought about it, Marinette cared too, she was always there for him, for both sides of him.

_She may even love me._ He smiled to himself as he thought about their messed-up situation and well, he just wanted her to know what he knew, so they could be together, finally, just like Alya and Nino.

They’d be able to move to an island, live off of fruit and get a Hamster.

_I wonder if she likes Hamsters?_

Letting out a loud lovesick sigh, he startled at the giggle that came right behind him. “YEAH!”

He did not live up to his namesake as he jumped ten meters in the air and fell down an alley, too shocked from the surprise to catch himself.

His Lady, his Princess, did not just catch him in midair. Nope. Nu uh.

He also did not just get caught as he sighed as he dreamed about her approach only for her to surprise him then have to save him from his over the top reaction as if she had dropped a cucumber behind him.

Right.

“Hey Chaton,” she seductively (he could dream right?) and adorably snickered as she swung them to the nearest rooftop as she landed beautifully as usual, “that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to sneak up on you,” she giggles sweetly as she let him go. “What’s on your mind?”

Oh, he could feel himself getting lost in her gorgeous eyes as he gazed at her. He missed her arms around him already. He smiled goofily as he lost himself in her eyes and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

She tried to get him to respond. “Okay, what is so distracting that the great Chat Noir forgot about little ol’ me?” She sweetly blinked at him with a knowing smile.

_Does she even know what she's doing to me?_

_Oh, wait, she wants a response!_

Clearing his throat, he tried to speak, “I-I uh, I got caught up admiring your beauty Ma- My Lady!” He sputtered. _Stupid, stupid, stupid! How can I get more lame?_

She giggled prettily once more and wait, was that a slight blush under her mask?

“Chaton,” She gently flicked the bell on his collar, “I like, you, I really do…” she said distractedly, “but…” She shuffled her feet and didn’t know what to say, tired of having to repeat herself he was sure.

“But there’s another guy you like, I know.” He blinked.

All of a sudden, it dawned on him that he couldn’t just tell her it was him! Not yet, she had to figure it out or she’d never forgive him. He didn’t want her to just love one side of him, he wanted her to love ALL of him. _Think Adrien!_

“There’s a bit more to it than that Kitty, but let’s just leave it there okay?” She finally offered.

He winked at her, “it doesn’t stop me from admiring you Ma-My Lady. You can’t paws-itively say that I should give up on you, not until you’re absolutely claws-tive that he’s the one for you when he finally realizes what a gem you are and asks you to be his girlfriend.”

“How did you know that we’re not...” She started to say.

Swallowing quickly, he realized his mistake and called out as he jumped off of the building quickly, “well look at the time! Let’s talk tomorrow My Lady! I’ll finish up here! Goodnight!” As he launched himself over the next rooftop he spun around in midair and threw her a kiss.

He barely caught a glimpse of her rolling her eyes before shouting out at him in frustration, “Cat! Get Back Here!”

He laughed joyfully as he raced away from her, his plan for making her realize that she liked him, both sides of him, began to form in his mind.


	6. School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien now knows he's got to let his Lady figure out his identity.  
> That doesn't mean that he can't have some fun with what he knows at school.
> 
> Bonus: Tikki makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for the kudos, great comments and all the support I've gotten for this story. 
> 
> I will have to try and keep my answers to comments short though in the future, while I love and I appreciate the support, there was actually a day this past week where I didn't have time to write after answering all the great comments and I have so many projects I'm working on lol, it was a nice change though.
> 
> Anyhow it seems like everyone likes this story so far and since I got this chapter done a little early, I decided to just post it rather than wait a few days.
> 
> Enjoy!

Losing his transformation as he landed in his room, Plagg flew out of his ring and promptly started to cackle.

“Oh, this is going to be great!” Plagg died laughing, “Tikki was so angry when we left! I could sense it!”

Adrien glanced at Plagg with his own sly grin, “angry at me or angry at you?”

Plagg got really quiet just then and loudly swallowed. “Better get me some Camembert kid, you wouldn’t want me to die hungry, would you?”

…

Leaving for school early the next day, Adrien hoped that he would get to see Marinette before school, but all he got was practice in dodging Chloe’s morning attempt to greet him with a kiss, again.

Adrien day dreamed as he quickly walked into school after escaping Chloe, _I wish Marinette would do that_. Then he blushed at the thought.

_Well, maybe she got here early?_

Not watching where he was going, he ran into someone tiny. At first, he thought he’d run over Rose, but then he realized that the other person had caught him from falling all the way down for once, and of course it was his Princess. His Lady was probably the only girl strong enough at school to catch him after all. He smirked and gazed into her eyes as she slowly helped him up, “well, it just goes to show that uh, I’d fall for you eventually, Mari.” He flirted as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

She answered with a shocked, “Eep!” As he realized that maybe he should tone the Chat Noir side down a bit.

Marinette, his Lady, looked frozen in place, her mouth gaping open like a cute little fish. Come to think of it, she’s done that before, _huh, at least I have a better idea of what that means now._

“Mari,” he gently called to her as she blinked, “Mari, wake up, you’re dreaming.” He teased.

She coughed lightly, finally covering her mouth with her delicate hand as she sputtered, “I w-was?”

Adrien couldn’t help but laugh a little with his own light blush, he shook his head and patted her on the shoulder. “You know, I think I was too. Can I escort you inside Milady?” He gave her a quick bow and she giggled at his antics as he held out his arm for her to take. For a moment he thought he’d gone too far, but she amazingly took his arm with a deep blush on her cheek, and then she let him lead her to class.

_I’m walking My Lady, My Princess, the most wonderful and amazing Marinette Dupain-Cheng to class! She sits behind me! This day couldn’t get any better!_

It would have been purr-fect if it hadn’t been for Chloe.

“Adrikins! What are you doing with her!” She spat as they entered the classroom together.

Giving her a winning smile, and patting Marinette’s hand in his arm with his other hand to comfort her, he answered briefly, “I’m escorting her to her seat of course.” He had reached the aisle by his desk at this point and unfortunately had to let go of Marinette, letting her sit down, only for her to grace him with another small smile.

He couldn’t help but sigh heartbreakingly before he had to force himself to turn around and deal with Chloe.

“But, but… why? She doesn’t deserve you!” Chloe shrieked, “she’s just a baker’s daughter!”

As Adrien turned towards Chloe he carefully answered with his model smile, “I know that I’m claw-some Clo, but I donut want to argue about it. Marinette is a rising star in her own right and I’m privileged to be her friend at the very yeast.” Then he gently led Chloe by her elbow to her own desk as he whispered, “you’re going to have to get used to it too. I think I like her Clo, she makes me happy, so please try to be nice to her, for me?”

Chloe gasped, “you’re just being ridiculous! Utterly Ridiculous!”

Laughing sweetly, Adrien ran his hand over the back of his neck and blushed slightly, “of course I am, I’m having a punderful day!”

“Oh Dude, No. We’ve talked about this!” Nino finally whined about the puns.

Chloe groaned and turned to Sabrina to complain about something else. Nothing turned off Chloe than a good round of puns after all.

“Are you feeling okay Adrien?” Marinette sweetly asked, confused for some reason that she just couldn’t quite put her finger on as he sat down at his own desk.

Adrien turned around and winked at her, “I’m feline as fine as usual today Mari. How are you?” He cocked his head, wondering if that was too much of a clue.

She blushed a little and answered shyly, “I’m feeling batter thanks to you.”

He gasped dramatically, placing a hand on his chest, “Mari! I didn’t dough you knew how to pun!”

“No please!” Nino whined again.

“Oh no, don’t get her started Adrien!” Alya pleaded as she turned to look at Mari, seeing the gleam in her friend’s eye, Alya just groaned.

“I’d Loaf to discuss this more, but class is about to start!” Marinette gave Adrien a winning smile before she leaned across her desk and whispered, “my dad loves puns. He’s been training me for years, I just try not to do it most of the time because some people don’t like it since it makes it hard to concentrate and it’s not very professional.” She shrugged and then smiled at him confidently and gave him a quick wink, “of course, there is always a time and place for everything.” Adrien almost melted as he realized that she was channeling her other persona for him at that very moment as their teacher called the class to order.

He finally was able to breathe again as he grinned back at her before turning around and attempted to pay attention.

Of course, he had to borrow Nino’s notes afterwards to remember what the topic had been.

…

Halfway through their first period, Adrien’s bag was knocked over like someone kicked it, knocking it open and almost spreading some of Adrien’s things on the floor.

“Adrien, please be more careful.” His teacher admonished.

“Yes, Madam.” Adrien answered.

He slid out of his seat and righted the bag and its contents, only to look inside to see a very worried Plagg with a very annoyed Ladybug kwami.

Tikki was cute, especially with that irritated pout that reminded him of his Lady. He gave them a quick smile and a wink before putting his hand in his bag and patted each of them briefly on the head.

Tikki looked alarmed but then turned to look at Plagg and glared.

Plagg mouthed the words, ‘help me’.

Adrien fought a snicker as he bent over and mouthed, ‘just behave guys.’

Then he closed his bag, despite Plagg’s silent pleas, and then he sat it up and grinned a knowing grin as he waited for the end of class.


	7. Nino Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter:  
> Adrien walked Marinette to class and they punned together.  
> Tikki tackled Plagg in Adrien's bag and almost knocked the cat out of the bag.  
> Plagg pleaded for help, Adrien patted their heads and told them to behave.
> 
> This Chapter:  
> Nino knows something is up.  
> Adrien gets a shower.

Lunchtime came quickly enough.

“Hey guys,” Adrien addressed Nino, Alya and Marinette. “Do you want to go grab a bite to eat at this diner nearby? My treat.” Because that was the closest thing he could think of doing besides outright asking Marinette, no Ladybug, no Maribug out alone, which he was so not ready for.

Then he was struck with the irony, originally it was Nino that wanted to date Marinette but thankfully Nino and Alya were now happily together, even thought they kept it on the down low most of the time. But now Adrien needed Nino’s presence while he tried to ask out, or hang out with, the amazing Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Ah, such is life.

Adrien was so happy that he wouldn’t have to fight anyone for her, well, if he didn’t know she was crushing on both sides of him he’d think the closest guy to her would be Luka but still, thanks to her Facetime Mishap, he knew his biggest competition for his Lady, for Marinette, was with himself.

He dared to dream, ah… a date with Mari. Now that would be magical.

“Hey Dude.” He kind of heard Nino, but he was too happy dreaming of them having a picnic on the Eiffel tower.

Adrien did want to be more than friends with her, but he realized that first he had to tell her, somehow. No, first he had to help her figure it out so she didn’t kill him by throwing him across the city trying to break her own personal record, again.

Of course, with the anger that she might have about his discovery, he just might be looking at a one-way trip to Spain if this went wrong.

“What’s with the face Dude?” Nino finally broke through Adrien’s daydreaming as he waved his hand in front of his friend’s face. “We thought we lost you there for a moment man. Did you still want to go out to lunch?”

Adrien smiled and glanced at Mari.

Marinette beamed back at him just then and he almost melted, again. That was probably going to be a regular occurrence now. “Actually, my parents are expecting Ayla and I for lunch. Would you both like to c-come and join us?”

“Actually Mari,” Nino put his hand on Adrien’s shoulder, “this Dude promised to talk to me about something, so you girls go on and have fun. I’m going to take my Bro up on his offer.”

“Nino?” He hadn’t planned on talking with him about anything.

“Come on Dude, let’s go.” Nino directed him out of the school. “See you later Dudettes!”

“Um ok, bye Mari! Bye Alya!” Adrien called behind him, wondering what Nino wanted to talk to him so urgently about.

After sitting down at the diner and ordering their lunch Nino began his interrogation.

“Dude!”

“What?” Adrien shyly responded.

“Dude!” Nino reiterated as he made a gesture with his hands that Adrien thought meant, ‘why?’

Adrien chuckled at his friend’s display.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’m acting differently around Mari?” He hazarded a guess.

“Duh! What gives?”

Folding his hands on the table Adrien tapped his thumbs together as he carefully answered, “I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to go and report all of this to Alya just so she can tell Mari.”

“Uhhh, I’m not going to do that.” Nino glanced off to the side as he took his hat off and brushed his hair back before he put the hat back on. Even Adrien knew that it was his friend’s nervous tell.

“Uh huh. Do you promise that this stays here between you and me?” Adrien grinned before he added, “I just need you to keep it quiet for 48 hours. Can you do that for me, pleaseeee?” He begged, using his kitten eyes that only Nino and Nathalie had to try to say no to on a regular basis. They usually would do whatever he asked, eventually.

“Ah man, that’s so not fair! Don’t look at me like that! Alya will be livid if I don’t tell her!”

“Then tell her it’s for the greater good and you’re sworn to silence.” Adrien waved his arm for emphasis. “Pleaseeee!” He begged again, his eyes growing to an embarrassing but convincing size.

“Ugh! Alright, but in 48 hours I’m gonna tell Alya.” Nino folded his arms and grinned at his friend. “So, fess up. What will I have to report?”

Adrien smirked, “Well, if all goes well, you won’t have to.”

“Huh?” Nino answered as he took a drink of his complimentary water.

“I’m trying to get Mari to like me.”

Nino choked and sprayed his mouthful of water all over the model.

“Really? Was that necessary?” Adrien looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he took his napkin and started to wipe himself off.

“Dude!” Nino snorted as he tried not to laugh, “you’ve got to let me be there when Alya finds out!” He gasped for breath and laughed once more.

_Come on,_ Adrien thought, _she hasn’t been crushing on me that hard, has she?_

Watching his friend attempt to calm down about his news, he felt a little bad because he must have been extremely oblivious about her feelings if this was the reaction he would be getting from his best friend. He would definitely have to apologize to his Lady someday.

\-----

Finishing their lunch quickly Adrien suggested they meet the girls at the bakery to walk them back to school.

On the way, Nino decided to try to figure out Adrien’s plan.

“So, Dude, what’s your deal?” He started chuckling to himself as he managed to say, “what grand gesture do you think that YOU have to do to get Mari’s attention?”

“Well, I am going to try to be more of myself.” He started, of course he couldn’t tell Nino that he was going to let his Chat Noir side bleed through, but Nino knew enough of that side of him already without his donning the mask.

“Uh, huh. Hello dork-ville, but Mari is kinda like that too, so that’s no biggie. What else do ya got?”

Adrien shrugged, “well, I’ve only got two days, but I plan on asking her out day after tomorrow if I can.”

“Something sappy right?”

Adrien laughed, “I’m working on it!”

\-----

It was fun walking the girls to school, once again Adrien offered his arm to Marinette, much to the chagrin of Chloe and probably the other half dozen girls that growled as they passed and come to think of it, about the dozen or so dirty glares from guys too. Adrien hadn’t realized that they had so many friends that cared so much about them.


	8. What would you do Milady?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter:  
> Nino confronted Adrien about acting strangely and Adrien made him promise not to tell Alya that he was interested in Mari. Adrien also promised Nino that he was going to ask Marinette out in two days no matter what so he only had to keep the secret until then.
> 
> This Chapter:  
> Having been unable to talk to Marinette otherwise, the next chance Adrien gets to speak with her is when they're wearing their masks. So he asks her what to do when a kwami misbehaves.

Adrien had set out early to meet with Maribug, or should he call her Buginette? He chuckled, it didn’t matter, she was amazing no matter what name she had! He was determined to take the next step in breaking the news to his Lady, to his Marinette.

Due to a photoshoot right after school he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her or Facetime with her, and curse his bad luck, he had actually forgotten to charge his phone!

He was squirming inside right now at the very thought that she just might like him enough to agree to go out with him eventually though!

_I am her ‘hot stuff’ after all_ , he thought as he smirked to himself at the reminder of her nickname for him.

Still, it was hard to hold still for the half hour it took for her to meet him at the top of the Eiffel tower. Maybe he did arrive a bit too early.

This time though he was determined not to be surprised by her, she could kill a guy with her beauty after all. He sighed once more, loudly, as he leaned on one of the tower’s beams.

“Thinking about me again Chaton?” She said as she swung up beside him.

Plagg would later accuse him of being startled and almost falling, again, but Chat Noir was as calm as a cat, that maybe had a cucumber sneak up on it, but he wasn’t about to dwell on that.

He cleared his throat as he bowed towards her, “Always My Lady, always.”

Then he smirked as he added, “so, did you miss having this ‘hot stuff’ following you around everywhere Bugaboo?”

_That’s a good clue, come on My Lady! See me!_

“Oh, stop with the Bugaboo.” She chuckled sweetly.

His smirk grew as he realized that she hadn’t denied that he, as Chat Noir, was “hot stuff” too.  

Ladybug sat down on the beam beside him, “well, while I don’t mind patrolling alone once in a while, I kind of missed you yesterday Chat Noir.”

“I deeply regret that I could only spend a few minutes in your purr-sence yesterday My Lady.” He said meaningfully, “but I’ve been dealing with something that may be of a purr-sonal nature that I need to discuss with you.”

She tensed and started with, “Chat I…”

“No,” he held up his hand to stop her objection, “I know what you’re going to say, but I think that I’ve finally figured out a way to talk about it without revealing anything about me.” He waved it off nonchalantly.

“Oh, well, okay, then please, go ahead.” She offered as she dangled her legs off the tower.

“What is your kwami like?” He asked as he sat down beside her.

“This is about our kwami?”

He nodded, _it has a lot to do with our kwami after all._

“Well, Tikki is a real sweetheart. She loves sweet things and she’s just the sweetest little friend ever.” Ladybug answered kindly.

Adrien had to look away, he had to concentrate so he couldn’t look at her directly, she was just too… Marinette.

He tried to sound indifferent with his next question, “Is she the one that told you we couldn’t reveal ourselves to each other?”

“Well, yes. Didn’t your kwami tell you the same thing?”

He chuckled, “Plagg was more interested in eating my foosball table than talking about stuff originally. He likes stinky things and he’s loud and obnoxious.”

Adrien could hear Plagg’s protesting _“HEY!”_ in the back of his mind but he ignored it.

“Oh, well, Tikki is as sweet as the things she eats really.” Maribug replied.

“Is she trustworthy?” Adrien carefully asked.

“Chat Noir! Tikki only wants the best for me!” She scolded as she eyed him suspiciously, “what are you getting at Chaton?”

Ignoring the question, he nodded, “well, I think when push comes to shove I could probably say the same thing about Plagg, but I probably wouldn’t call him trustworthy, especially if we’re talking about not causing some mayhem when given the chance. I have to keep a close eye on him in general. Is your kwami like that?”

Stealing a glance at her, he was able to see her looking at him like he was nuts.

“No. Tikki would never do anything like that, she’s practically a perfectionist and she cares about me way too much to do anything to cause a problem, she’s actually very thoughtful. But I don’t get it, why do you want to talk about our kwami?”

He sighed as he thought, _time to put on a show_.

“Welllll,” he drawled, “I’m trying to figure out what to do about a kwami that doesn’t even follow their own rules.”

Plagg snorted in the back of his mind.

“Oh, what happened?”

“Hmm,” he tapped his finger on his chin, “well, that’s not so much important as to what to do with the kwami. I may be ecstatic about the outcome, don’t get me wrong Ma-My Lady I’m VERY happy about what happened, but still, some punishment may be in order here.”

Marinette gasped, “you’re thinking about punishing your kwami?”

“Oh, his cheese rationing has definitely changed because of this.” He admitted as he risked looking in her direction, but he didn’t add the fact that he’d thrown in even more cheese lately than he would have normally.  Basically, things had actually gotten better for Plagg, but Adrien didn’t want her to know that.

_‘You’re doing great kid.’_ Plagg encouraged.

_Who knew Plagg was so present in my head when I’m transformed? Well, at least he’s enjoying himself._ Adrien thought.

“I’m thinking that it might be time to get him on a diet of some generic cheddar.” Adrien then joked.

His mental Plagg growled at the suggestion and Adrien couldn’t help but lightly chuckle.

“But that’s not stinky.” His Lovebug noticed.

He turned to grin at her, “I know. He hates the stuff”

Then the sneaky cat returned to watching the city as they were silent for a moment as he sighed, “well, you say that your kwami is sweet and trustworthy. What should be done about a kwami that is deceptive and doesn’t follow their own rules to the letter though?”  He waved his gloved hand.

“Umm, I don’t know what you’re getting at.” Ladybug stated warily.

“Well, what would you do if it was Tikki? If she had done something that was really, really bad.”

“Umm, I don’t know. What happened Chat?”

He got up and looked down at her, preparing to leave, as he tried to give her a worried smile, “Well, you’d better talk to Tikki about that.”

“Tikki?”

Chat Noir nodded as he sported a small but kind smile on his face, “and take it easy on her. I’m actually ecstatic about what happened although if she’s going to tell you about it, she’s going to have to be pretty vague as she tries to continue to stick to the rules I suppose. She’ll know what I mean.” He chuckled as he took Marinette’s hand and kissed the back of it as he prepared to leave.

“Huh?” Ladybug looked at him quizzically, “what are you talking about Cat?”

“Tell her that I KNOW what she did and so does she. Ask her about it, or,” he grew thoughtful and grinned, “just ask her why I’m SOooooo happy.” His smirk was quite comical at that point actually. “I think it’s a good enough reason to skip patrol today, you really should talk with her about it, we can talk more about it tomorrow night if you’d like to, say 9:00pm? Here?”

Come to think of it, his face had been in a perpetual grin of some kind since she had arrived.

Ladybug nodded then stood up, “so is that all you’re going to tell me?”

“Now Bugaboo, you can’t ask me to tell you everything.” He winked at her and saluted, “Somethings you just have to figure it out for yourself. Au-revoir my beautiful and AMAZING Lady!”

He jumped off the tower and raced home, Plagg cackling in the back of his mind as Ladybug called after him, her voice disappearing in the distance, “Chat Noir!”


	9. The Girls POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter:  
> Having been unable to talk to Marinette otherwise, the first chance Adrien had to speak with Marinette privately for an extended period was when they're wearing their masks. So he asked her what to do when a kwami misbehaves and to take it easy on Tikki for not following her own rules.
> 
> This Chapter:  
> Tikki has some explaining to do and Marinette is shocked that Chat Noir hasn't already shown up on her balcony.

Landing in her room through her skylight, Marinette let go of her transformation and sighed sarcastically, “Well, that was informative. It’s like he was trying to tell me something important but he wasn’t able to. Tikki, do you know what is going on? Why would Chat Noir think that I ought to think about punishing you?”

 _Now how do I answer that?_ Tikki thought. _She trusts me so much, but Mari would never be angry with me, right? I’m going to have to put on a good act to keep his identity a secret and not make things worse. That cad of a cat! Ugh._

Tikki, landed near the plate of cookies Marinette kept out for her, but she didn’t eat. Her antenna drooped and she looked… guilty.

“Tikki, what was Chat talking about?” Again, her kwami was silent, which really unnerved Marinette, “Tikki, come on, you can tell me! Why does he think that I might need to punish you?”

_I’m so going to get that stinky sock for this. I bet it was his idea! Ugh, but I better play nice._

Tikki sighed, “poor Plagg, I never wanted to get him into trouble.”

_Yep, I’ll just pretend to say the opposite of what I mean._

“Well, maybe it’s just a misunderstanding?” Marinette offered as she picked up a cookie and offered it to Tikki, who took it uneasily and began to nibble on it cutely.

_Good, she’s trying to comfort me. Although it will be Plagg that’s going to need help once I get my paws on him. Now I’ve got to be careful how I word this…_

Tikki shook her little head and sniffed, “I was tired Marinette, tired that this has taken so long, tired that you’re not seeing what is RIGHT in front of you!” She waved her little arms at that, “and to top it off, I miss Plagg!” She made sure that she pouted at that.

_Well, I did miss him, now I just want to throw him across the city, him and his chosen of course for making me go through this. That can be arranged of course, next akuma attack and that boy is going to fly! Okay, now I’m going to have to look heartbroken._

“What happened Tikki?” Marinette asked worriedly as she brushed the top of her kwami’s head as she tried to comfort her. “What did you do?”

Tikki took a deep breath and sighed, “well, first of all, I’m going to have to plan on having another chat with a certain cat. This WAS his idea after all.” _I’ve got to throw in some honesty after all._

_And boy, is that cat going to get it._

Marinette waited for it.

 _Dial up the waterworks Tiks_.

“And… and I have to apologize to you Marinette.” She sniffed before she took another deep breath as she inhaled and quickly explained, “I kindasortaletChatNoirknowwhoyouare!”

“What!?!” Marinette exclaimed, “T-That’s not possible, you’ve never talked with Chat Noir!”

_Well, not directly, he was listening in over the phone which kind of side stepped the little magical boundaries we have, allowing me to call you Ladybug to you, so no big deal right?_

“I didn’t need to talk to him, per se. I just let him get enough clues to figure it out.” Tikki shrugged and frowned as she watched Marinette be more worried about her kwami than the situation.

“How?” Marinette said with a hollow voice as she gently patted Tikki’s head.

Tikki sighed, “I can’t say, but it did happen and now he knows that you’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m so sorry Marinette, I was SO sure that once he figured it out he’d tell you who he was too. I can only IMAGINE why he’s being so vague about everything.” Tikki practically snorted as she folded her arms and said, “His not telling you his own identity was probably Plagg’s idea.”

_That’s an understatement. Plagg’ll be so disappointed when he finds out that Marinette would never punish me. I bet he got a whole weeks’ worth of Camembert over this._

_…_

Marinette swallowed, “w-why didn’t Chat just outright tell me that he knew?” Taking a deep breath, Marinette wondered if it was so horrible that she was Ladybug, for just a nanosecond, but then she remembered that Chat Noir had said that he was ecstatic and that he was Sooooo Happy.

“I… I don’t know.” Tikki honestly replied, “but I could guess.”

 _He probably talked his kwami into convincing Tikki!_ Marinette thoughtfully growled as she looked over at her sweet kwami, looking so sad and dejected as she waited for her punishment _, how could I ever punish Tikki though, she’s so sweet!_

_…_

“Oh Tikki, I’m sure you didn’t mean to do anything wrong, you were probably tricked into it.”

Tikki flashed a small grin, knowing that she was practically off the hook and then flew into Marinette’s face and gave her a hug, “I’m so sorry Marinette!”

“Don’t worry Tikki, I don’t blame you, it would have happened anyway, someday, right?”

Tikki grinned as she spun around in the air, “that’s a good way to see it Marinette!”

Marinette wondered if Chat really did punish his kwami, now that she thought about it, he probably was just joking about giving Plagg generic cheese instead of something truly putrid that the kwami would enjoy. He probably bought him two cases worth of Camembert for this.

But then she remembered something, “Tikki, wait a minute, why did Chat Noir suggest that he might need to punish Plagg?”

…

 _I was so close._ Tikki mentally rolled her eyes. _I’m a goddess of creation, I can come up with something believable._

Tikki sighed and then smiled at Marinette sweetly. “Think about it Marinette, Plagg and I have been duty bound to help keep our chosen’s identities secret. There have been times when we’ve had to help you hide your identity. Plagg and I just, uh, recently agreed to not do that anymore, in the hopes that you’d be able to figure out who your partner is on your own faster.”

_No need to mention the bet on whose chosen would freak out more._

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.” Marinette commented, “that’s all that you did, right?”

Tikki nodded with a sweet grin. “Well, I can’t go into a lot of detail without giving you any huge clues about what happened, but I pretty much made it undeniable that Ladybug is Marinette by not doing something.” Tikki quietly admitted.

_And of course, playing for the camera, sort of._

Then she added, “Plagg kind of did the same thing on his end, not covering up your secret I mean.”

Smiling as sweetly as she could, Tikki honestly told her, “I’m so sorry Marinette, this really got out of hand, I was so sure that Chat Noir would tell you who he was as soon as he found out.”

“Oh, Tikki, it’s going to be okay.” Marinette sighed. “Wait, was that why he was late and so weird yesterday? He’s known for a full day?!”

_It's shocking that he hasn’t spilled the beans yet, I know, but better cover for him a little bit. I wouldn’t want her to be angry with Adrien after all, no, this is mostly on Plagg._

Tikki nodded, “well, today was the soonest that he could have told you apparently. He obviously was still processing the information.” Tikki giggled.

Marinette smiled, “yeah, it was pretty funny when I startled him yesterday.”

_It was hilarious!_

“Yeah, today too.” Tikki looked up at Marinette, “are you mad at me?”

Marinette thought for a brief moment but shook her head, “no. I could never be mad at you Tikki, this isn’t as bad as I imagined it would be. Chat hasn’t been following me around and didn’t even come to my balcony last night, so he seems to be keeping his distance and respecting my privacy.”

“That’s true!” Tikki happily noted. _I still can’t believe it!_

“Besides, how could I be mad at you if you really thought that it was time? I kind of wish we did it willingly though, but huh.” Marinette thought about it. “You’ve had it ingrained in me for so long that we couldn’t reveal our identities I probably wouldn’t have been very open to the idea.” Marinette chuckled and Tikki joined her.

_Don’t I know it._

Marinette took a deep breath, “well then, what now?” She looked at her little companion, “should we just call Chat and tell him to get over here to talk about it now and see if he wants to tell me who he is? It’s not like I haven’t wondered who he is, or should we just wait until tomorrow?”

Tikki thought for a moment, _let’s let them get the wrong idea and suffer a bit._ Before kindly responding, “well, maybe it would be a good thing to sleep on it, you know, to get used to the idea.”

“Well, I do like Chat, I always have and this thoughtful side of him, well, it just makes me like him more.” Marinette brightly said before she blushed, “he found a way of letting me know that he knew, that he liked that it’s me and now he’s giving me the space and the time that he had to get used to the idea of us knowing who each other are under the mask.”

Tikki looked at her chosen disbelievingly, not that Marinette noticed. “Sure…” she drawled, “but I do have a suggestion about what we can do…”


	10. A Touch of Subtlety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter:  
> Tikki told her side of the story and managed to get out of getting into trouble, the guys? It depends on your point of view.
> 
> This Chapter:  
> Their first akuma attack since Chat Noir discovers that Marinette is Ladybug. ( warning, this chapter is a bit longer because akuma attacks do that)  
> Tikki has encouraged Marientte on how to handle this reveal, and apparently she has given her some pointers too.

“Ugh, what time is it Plagg?” Adrien asked blearily as he glanced at the clock that read 5:34am as Plagg headbutted him again. Just under an hour until Nathalie is supposed to check that he’s up and getting ready for school. He groaned and rolled over, covering his head with his pillow.

“Get up kid!” Plagg ordered.

 _I really shouldn’t have stayed up so late wondering if she’ll be upset that her Kitty knows that she’s the marvelous and amazing Marinette Dupain-Cheng._ Adrien sighed as he thought about it.

“Get up or else!” Plagg threatened wickedly.

Adrien ignored his kwami as he rolled his eyes at him with his eyes blissfully shut, knowing that Plagg couldn’t get to him under his pillow cave and he smiled, _at least I know that she’ll like who she sees under the mask. I’m her Hot Stuff after all. Ah, Hot Stuff, I can SO get used to her calling her Kitty that._

Then it was like someone had shoved a stinky sock under his pillow and into his face, causing Adrien to jolt out of bed as he cried out, “ugh gross Plagg! Get that out of my face!”

“Just because you can’t appreciate Camembert, there is no reason to hurt it’s feelings!” Plagg objected as he petted his cheese briefly before nonchalantly adding, “now focus and wake up Kid, your phone just went off with one of those Ladyblog alerts.”

Adrien shot up out of bed, “Plagg! You should have woken me up!” He objected as he threw a shirt and jacket on, stocking it with some cheese as he wasn’t about to risk de-transforming again and having to explain why he was running around Paris in his pajama pants if he got caught without it.

“I did,” Plagg’s voice changed to tease him, “now you’ll get to see your LADY!” Then he gulped down his Camembert in one gulp.

Adrien’s fears were forgotten as he sported a megawatt grin as he called out, “Plagg! Claws out!”

After he transformed, Adrein lept out of his window, only for Plagg to start laughing in the back of his mind again.

Groaning, knowing that Plagg wouldn’t be any help, Adrien returned to his room and checked his phone, only to find out that the akuma was near the outskirts of the city at the airport.

 _“A little eager aren’t we?”_ Plaggs voice teased.

Ignoring his kwami, Adrien put his phone down and announced, “well, we can’t leave my Bugaboo waiting.” He grinned and lept through his window once again.

…

Jet Master was one of the most annoying akumas ever, and one of the fastest. He had been a traveler tired of how slow traffic to the airport was so he became an akuma with a jetpack on his back and a credit card he wielded to shoot people and make them slow down so he could speed right past them. Which really didn’t make sense because come on, he was a flying akuma.

So now Jet Master was currently doing loops around the airport for some unknown reason.

Chat Noir found Ladybug standing on one of the nearby airport motels assessing the situation.

“Hello Chaton!” She greeted when he landed.

 _Okay, I have hope, she hasn’t hit me yet._ Adrien thought thankfully. “You’re, not uh, mad at me?” He asked hesitantly.

She waved it off as she briefly shook her head, “we can talk about it tonight at 9pm. We need to make this a quick one Kitty, I’ve got to get to school on time for once.”

Adrien grinned, “you and me both Milady. We’ll have to cat-ch a flight to get there on time today though I’m afraid.”

“Well, I’m lucky enough that I just might be able to book us something.” She answered with a nod as she called out her special ability, “lucky charm!”

Her lucky charm turned out to be an Olympic type medal that they gave to the winners at the podium, with some sort of an athlete swinging something on it. Looking at it closely, Marinette glanced at the akuma and then at Chat Noir. Putting it around her neck, she came up with a plan.

He could have sworn that she whispered, “purr-fect.”

“My Lady?” He asked questioningly, a small smile on his lips at her use of puns.

But then she said, “it looks like his akuma is in that credit card of his.” She noted as he nodded in agreement. “If I can get you to him, can you destroy it?”

“Mew-velous plan, My Lady. As always, I’m at your service.”

She nodded at him with a strange grin on her face before yelling out to the akuma, “hey Mr. Jet Blaster! Why don’t you fly by our way!” Of course, Jet Blaster reversed course and flew towards them crying out, “give me your Miraculous!”

Ladybug picked up Chat, which he thoroughly enjoyed, until he realized what she was about to do.

Dodging the charging akuma, she started swinging Chat Noir around like he was some sort of large discus. _So, that was what that image on the medal was_ , he quickly realized.

Even more quickly he was thankful that he hadn’t eaten recently. After five or six incredibly fast spins, he had to admit that he lost count of the spins, she launched Chat Noir like a cannonball, straight at Jet Master.

Adrien didn’t remember if he screamed or not either, because he was going really fast, the G-force probably wasn’t unlike an astronaut being shot into space on a rocket. He felt his face being manipulated like putty by the wind.

Jet Master screamed at the increase of speed at the impact of Chat Noir as Ladybug’s yo-yo had caught the akuma’s foot miraculously just before impact. Causing them to pull her with them as they literally flew across Paris. With a few flicks of her yo-yo, Jet Master was tied up and unable to struggle. Ladybug managed to turn off his jet pack with one flick of her string and they continued on their extremely fast ride.

If it wasn’t for the impact with the akuma or Ladybug hitching a ride, Adrien was sure that he would have literally passed over the whole of Paris and landed in a barn somewhere.

The akuma screamed as Ladybug haphazardly directed their path somehow with her yo-yo as they kept rising in the sky as several things went through Adrien’s mind.

First, this was a bit over the top.

Second, it was definitely a new record for her throwing him, even without including the other two people along for the ride.

Third, if she could have caught the akuma with her yo-yo like that, why did she throw Chat Noir too?

Fourth, Marinette was strong!

Finally, he realized that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as happy about what he now knew, or how he had found out, otherwise why would she have thrown him in such an awesome and violent manner?

Not that the ride wasn’t frightfully thrilling, but Adrien guessed that he’d be more worried if Ladybug wasn’t swinging in the wind and controlling what was starting to be their descent.

Still, they were coming down pretty fast.

That’s when she cried out, “Chat Noir! The akuma!”

“Oh, right!” He realized as he called out, “cataclysm!” Swiping the very alarmed akuma’s credit card, it disintegrated and the akuma flew out.

As they fell, Ladybug captured and cleansed the akuma midair.

Catching the akumatized victim as he reverted to his true form, Chat Noir was able to extend his baton and land safely in the park across from the school. Ladybug managed to use her yo-yo to land safely.

Ladybug’s timer was already down to two spots, but the victim stood up and angrily told them off in a language that even Adrien didn’t know before he stormed off. Apparently, he was upset that he was even further from the airport than before.

Adrien wondered if maybe being akumatized let him speak French during the battle, but they really didn’t have the time to figure out that fact as Ladybug’s timer was down to its last spot.

“Well, I guess we can’t purr-lease everyone.” Chat commented.

“I’m about to de-transform Chat! Can you… can you give me a ride?” She looked at him sheepishly.

Chat Noir grinned, as he bent down and picked her up bridal style.

She looked nervous as he jumped and commented, “don’t worry Bugaboo, I’ve got you.”

He ignored her quiet groan of the nickname but she made no other objection to it, he knew it would grow on her.

Thankfully it was still early and no one noticed the de-transformation of Ladybug in his arms a rooftop away from Marinette’s balcony.

Tikki landed in Marinette’s lap as Chat Noir made the last few jumps to make it to her balcony.

Landing gracefully, he set Marinette down on her feet gently, with Tikki in her hands.

“Well, um, that was fun.” He awkwardly stated, “but I really should go Princess, someone is bound to find out that I’m not at home soon and that would be cat-astrophic.” He’d rather wait until tonight to talk to her anyway, if she didn’t figure out who he was by then, well, he may have to take drastic measures.

Marinette smiled at him sweetly and his heart did a little dance as she asked, “can you wait just one more minute? I’ve got something for you and your Kwami.”

 _How can I deny her after she looks at me like that?_ Adrien wondered as he somehow managed to nod at her, forgetting that Nathalie would literally be knocking on his door in ten minutes or less.

She quickly disappeared through her skylight, but was back a minute later with two bags. One smelled heavenly of fresh croissants, probably fresh from the oven, and he found himself thinking how thoughtful, wonderful and amazing she was. That would be the purr-fect thing to help him settle his stomach after that flight earlier.

 _Maybe she isn’t upset with me and I was just imagining things._  He dared to believe.

Lifting the heavenly scented bag she told him, “this one is for you,” and as she lifted the other one she said, “and this one is for Plagg. Tikki said that it’s one of his favorites but it’s not something his holders normally would get him, but she thought he’d like it.” She then offered them to him.

Still enchanted by the smell of the first bag, Adrien held out his gloved hand to accept the thoughtful gifts of his Lady as he tried not to drool or swoon from the sudden burst of affection.

“Ma- My L-Lady, thank you.” He sincerely told her as he bowed, then took her hand and kissed the back of it as he normally would and took the gifts from her. Then hopped up on the balcony railing, determined to get home before the croissants cooled off.

Before he could let himself go though, he turned around on one foot to salute her goodbye, preparing to dazzle her with his parkour skills, only to find her close.

She was way too close, and before he registered what she was about to do she quickly cupped his face with both hands and then kissed him on the cheek as she whispered, “thank you for the ride Chaton.”

He blinked, stunned at her boldness, and then he promptly fell off the railing.

…

Thankfully, he landed on his feet, like any self-respecting cat would, thankful there wasn’t anyone around to have seen his folly.

“Are you okay down there?” She called out to him with a barely restrained laugh.

Still speechless, he sighed and waved goodbye to her as he thought that nothing could ruin his elation that she kissed him! She kissed him! Marinette kissed him!

She waved back, called out a goodbye, blew him another kiss, making his heart throb and then she disappeared, probably to get ready for school.

Adrien was now a pile of melted kitty goo and he had no idea how long he stood there basking in the glow of his Lady.

 _“Hey cats-onova!”_ Plagg’s voice warned him in his mind, _“you’ve got two minutes to get home!”_

Adrien ran for it.

…

Flying through his window, Adrien de-transformed. “Adrien!” Nathalie called as she knocked on his locked door, “If you don’t answer me this time, I’m afraid that I’ll have to alert your father!”

Realizing that she had come earlier for some reason Adrien called back, “I’m fine Nathalie. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes!”

“Very well, breakfast in thirty!” She answered and he heard her walk away.

Grinning from ear to ear he tossed Plagg his gift bag and then opened his own bag of what turned out to be three fresh croissants, plain, buttered and chocolate drizzled! “I LOVE that girl!” He exclaimed as he ate the chocolate one first, singing Marinette’s praises between bites as he quickly got dressed for the day.

“Ugh! I didn’t know you could be so sappy!” Plagg whined as he put his bag down on Adrien’s desk and struggled to unwrap it. Whatever it was, it was wrapped by several layers, enough for Plagg to have to endure more of Adrien’s sappy compliments as he ate his second croissant, only to pause for a sip of the water that was on his nightstand.

Between bites it sounded a lot like this…“Can you imagine it Plagg? Once we’re together I can go over to her house with or without the mask, then we can cuddle and eat all kinds of goodies together because she LOVES me! She’s the most wonderful, the most amazing…”

Plagg was half way through saying “blech” for the third time, having suffered almost ten minutes of his Lady’s praises, before he cried out, loudly and with glee as he realized what his gift was. “She remembered! Adrien, she remembered! Oh, my Sugar Cube remembered!”

His curiosity piqued, Adrien finally paid some attention to his kwami. Plagg was gripping something as large as he was. He spun around once and then proceeded to rip open another layer of wrapping joyfully to reveal something round and tinted orange under plastic wrap.

Adrien paused as he was about to take a second bite of his third treat, having finally finished getting ready for school as he caught a whiff of whatever Plagg was so excited about. “Plagg… what is, UGH! What IS that?” He exclaimed as he pinched his nose shut with one hand as Plagg actually chuckled with joy as if he had just found a mountain of Camembert.

Ripping open the last plastic layer, the very pungent smell of something that must have died stank up the room as Plagg exclaimed, “it’s my forbidden love kid! Epoisses Cheese! Sugarcube remembered just how I like it, past its expiration date!”

Adrien nearly choked and almost lost his breakfast as he raced to open the windows of his room, the smell was like Camembert on steroids. Breathing through his mouth didn’t help much.

“Get rid of it Plagg! Ugh! Gross!” Adrien complained as he dropped the rest of his snack and tried to capture the kwami and rid him of the offending devil cheese so that they would hopefully not need to fumigate his room for more than a week.

Plagg however, was now singing Tikki’s and Ladybug’s praises as he flew around the room, dropping crumbs everywhere as he took small bites, savoring his ‘gift.’

The chase went on for about fifteen minutes as Plagg stayed out of reach as he took slow and savoring bites of the abomination of what should be illegal cheese.

Finally, as Plagg took the last bite with a purr of pleasure, Adrien was able to catch his kwami as he gagged at the stench that was now his room.

Then the worst thing happened… there was a knock at the door as Nathalie called out, “Adrien? Are you alright?” Then he heard a rather loud sniff and a cough as she added, “just what is that smell?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, Epoisses Cheese is an extremely fragrant cheese, rumored to be illegal on public transit because of it's stench, I actually did a little research on it and from what I can tell, it's much worse than the smell of Camembert.  
> Also, apologies to any cheese connoiseurs out there, I was writing from Adrien's Point of view and do not wish to be blamed for insulting Plagg's forbidden love.


	11. Marinette Steps Up Her Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien and Plagg recover from their 'gifts,' only to find a surprise or two at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slightly late update, I've been having computer problems and I'm behind on a few projects, so I combined two short chapters to give you this. Enjoy!

Adrien was late to school, by his father’s standards at least.

Usually he was dropped off at school precisely at 7:40am. Unless he had a previous engagement or a conflicting photoshoot that is.

After discovering the nightmarish conditions of his room, Nathalie had him rushed off into a guest room, told him to take a quick shower, or two, as she found him some acceptably less fragrant clothes since taking anything out of his closet was out of the question as anything that was in his room had already picked up that horrible scent.

Thankfully his father had decided to leave for a trip just before the incident of the ‘gifts’ of torture, and Nathalie wasn’t of a mind to have to explain it to his father either. Nathalie got him everything needed to get him presentable and the fragrant toiletries needed to get him cleaned up.

Adrien had no idea his Lady could play so dirty, but he had to admit, it was kind of funny too.

Especially after his first task, bathing Plagg.

Ok, maybe not so funny, but a necessity that was long overdue.

Plagg was grumbling because Adrien had forced him to take a bath, with soap, despite the claims that, “hey! I was saving that smell for later! It’s taken me a hundred years to perfect my scent you… you traitor!”

So now, freshly scrubbed by his traitor of a chosen, rinsed and dried, Plagg’s normal sleek look was replaced by a very fluffy version of the grouchy and destructive cat.

“Aww, Plagg, you’re so cute,” Adrien teased, “I should get Nathalie to get me one of those cute kitty bows for you, since you look just so adorable!” He did his best to coo.

Plagg hissed, and pointed a very fluffy paw at him as he growled, “I have only shown you a glimpse my destructive powers kid. Atlantis? It didn’t just spring a leak, I can assure you that, so you just go right ahead and laugh it up. I KNOW where you sleep.”

Adrien shook his head, laughed and patted Plagg’s head quickly as he answered, “I’m just messing with you Plagg,” and then he got himself presentable.

That was how Adrien wound up wearing something far dressier than his usual to school. Just something left over from one of his less than recent shoots. Adrien was sure that he’d get Marinette to realize who he was with this outfit. Although he lacked the usual makeup and extreme hair gel, it was like he was going to a photoshoot as he wore fitted black slacks, black dress shoes, a loose black tie and a light green dress shirt.

He didn’t take much time to do his hair either, choosing to let it be a bit more wild than usual to keep up the Chat Noir vibe.

_If my Lady can play dirty, so can I._ He thought recklessly as he walked towards the steps to school after being dropped off at 7:45am as he heard several groups of kids whispering things along the lines of, “amazing!” or “gorgeous!” or “no, it must be another model coming to our school.” Or, “she must be out to get her man!” The last comment disarmed Adrien for a moment as he realized that they weren’t talking about him.

“It’s not fair! I’m going to go home and tell my daddy!” Chloe cried out as she rushed past him and headed home for some reason, clearly upset enough to wait for her ride. Adrien wasn’t sure if he should follow and risk being late to comfort his old friend or enter the school to see the new model that was also a student and be on time, maybe she could use a friend?

Seeing Alix, he asked her, “hey, what’s up with Chloe?”

Alix laughed, “let’s just say that even Chloe had to admit that another gal outshined her today, by like, a lot. She couldn’t handle the competition.” Then she inclining her head towards the entrance of the school she said, “go check it out Agreste,” then she snickered and added, “I’m SURE that you don’t want to miss it!”

His decision was made for him as the sea of students parted and he saw her.

She was standing at the top of the stairs with her back to him.

A goddess had come down to earth and chosen to come to his school.

He felt like he was cheating on Marinette as his breath was knocked out of him from the sight of her. From behind, she has the perfect model shape, not that he was particularly observant of female models because none of them could compare to his Ladybug, but he would know, and this… this girl even gave Ladybug a run for her money.

Whoever she was, she wore a lovely red knee length dress that flared out perfectly, with a black ribbon tied around her waist and tied in a perfect bow in the back. She wore black kitty heels that displayed her legs perfectly and she had her deep blue hair down, crimped to perfection.

Remotely he heard Nino call out to him as he wrapped his arm across Adrien’s shoulder, “Dude! Nice threads!”

The vision before him must have heard Nino as well as she torturously turned around slowly, revealing the only face that could have gone with those legs, as he realized how could he have not known? It was Marinette, his Lady, and he decided that she was definitely out to kill him.

…

Marinette had a subtle touch of make up on that really brought out her eyes and Adrien couldn’t breathe, at least not until Nino slapped him on the back and he was able to gasp for air.

“Hey guys,” her lovely voice called out to them as she confidently strode down the stairs towards them, something Adrien had never thought he’d see her being able to do without falling. He had never seen her so… WOW.

Marinette was moving like her alter ego, almost predatory, and he wished that he was her prey. It would have been a good death.

Then looking over his shoulder, she called out with a wave of her arm, “Anton!”

In shock, Adrien realized that she hadn’t dressed up for him, but for this ‘Anton’ as Marinette ran over to a well-dressed guy with black hair, tan skin, a killer smile and blue eyes. He could have been a model too and he appeared to be a couple years older than they were.

Adrien was shocked when Marinette actually hugged him as if they were more than just friends, took his hand and then they started to discreetly talk.

He supressed a growl.

Adrien just couldn’t believe it, Marinette liked him, both of him, right? Did he misunderstand their Facetime Mishap? Was this the guy she had told Chat Noir she loved? He was really beginning to doubt himself and his memory. Maybe she hadn’t meant anything by that kiss earlier, maybe she was just being friendly?

…

“Jealous Agreste?” Alya teasingly asked as Adrien coughed as he realized that yes, yes he was, as he tried to cover the shock on his face that Marinette was being so familiar with this new guy. Adrien’s face clouded, he was going to lose her but he couldn’t say anything! He was Adrien Agreste, not Chat Noir and he couldn’t punt his competition across the city! He was barely able to contain his anger, or his growl as he watched him interact with his Princess.

‘Anton’ smirked at Marinette and then laughed as he let her take his hand and lead him over to her friends. “Hey guys, this is Anton, he’s just coming by to make sure he had the right school.”

Anton spoke up as he wrapped his arm around Marinette’s waist in a very familiar way and said, “yeah, Mari here finally agreed to let me take her out to lunch, I’ve been meaning to spend some quality time with her.” He gave her a squeeze before he looked down at his watch, “well, sorry to say it Mari, but I have a meeting to get to and school is starting soon. See you at lunch?”

Marinette nodded, “See you then!”

Anton’s grin widened as he leaned over and gave Mari a kiss on her cheek before turning away with a nod and a wave of his hand, “Later Gorgeous!”

“Bye, Hot Stuff!” Marinette called out as she slapped Anton on his backside, which caused him to laugh, spin around and gently do the same to her before he sauntered off and shot her a set of finger guns. Anton then took a few steps backwards before waving once again as Marinette loudly sighed and walked back into the school, totally ignoring her astonished friends.

…

Coming out of the shock of hearing his beloved call another Hot Stuff and then smacking him on his backside, Adrien realized, _Wait… that’s my nick name!_

Shrugging off Alya and Nino in a rough fashion, Adrien ran off to find a private area to discuss things with his kwami.

“Plagg!” He almost yelled, knowing that all of this was Plagg’s idea and somehow it had gotten out of hand and now his Lady was going on a date with… with that cad!

Plagg floated out of his pocket like his life wasn’t in danger at all, despite the glare that Adrien was firing at him that ought to be able to kill immortal beings. “Kid, calm down.”

Adrien grabbed the fluffy cat out of the air and squeezed him tightly showing just how willing he was to calm down. Plagg then had the audacity to just grin and say with a choked but amused voice, “this is just more of Tikki getting her revenge on me.”

“This isn’t a game Plagg, this is the Love of my Life and she’s going out with another guy!”

Plagg coughed, “yeah it sure seems that way.”

“Wait, seems?” Adrien loosened his grip and Plagg smiled wickedly.

“Yeah, isn’t my Sugarcube brilliant? She got you to get all sappy to drive me nuts as you ate your little gift from Ladybug and then I got on your nerves from the very well planned and excellent gift she gave me.”

“I’m following. Then I had to give you a bath Mr. Fluffy.”

Plagg rolled his eyes, “moving on, she also threw us across the city.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

“Then you get to school and Marinette has been dressed up like, well, a model.”

Adrien grinned at the memory as he sighed and agreed, “yeah, just like the goddess that she truly is.” But then he frowned with a subtle growl as he remembered her date, “but for that Anton guy, not for me. How could you have let this happen!”

Plagg snorted, “that’s probably just overkill. They totally got you to notice her when you couldn’t do anything about it. Tikki probably thought you wouldn’t be able to not reveal yourself if you had competition.”

Adrien sighed, “I’m getting tired of this Plagg.”

“Are you kitten me? This is just getting fun!”

“Plagg, I told Nino that I’d ask her out by tomorrow, meaning I’m going to tell her who I am and beg her to forgive me for being such an idiot about all of this, but I’ve got to go and do it now before she runs off with that Anton guy!”

“Come on! She couldn’t leave you, you’re my kitten! No one can deny the charms of MY kittens!” Plagg boasted.

“Yeah, right Plagg. If that were true, we’d be together months ago. Now, this kitten is about to strangle you if you don’t get this cleared up.” Adrien insisted.

The school bell rang and Adrien had five minutes until he was officially late for class.

“Oh, please, we just have to get through the day, throw a few more hints and see her tonight. I’ll let you do it your way if you just follow through with this kid!”

“Plagg, I can’t let her go out with that Anton!”

Plagg deadpanned, “you really think that Ladybug can’t handle one model? It’s not like she hasn’t already tamed you Loverboy.”

“I’m done Plagg.” Adrien sighed. “I’m a cat, I don’t want to share My Lady, My Princess, My Ladybug or My Marinette, do you get the picture?”

“Look, I’m the guy with the thousands of years of wooing of hundreds of Ladybugs by my kittens behind my belt and I know what works.” Plagg boasted. “I promise you that you’ll get her to notice you by tonight and she’ll be like putty in your hands.”

“Plagg, you don’t have a belt and I’m tired. I don’t want to win her by trickery.”

“Chicken.”

“Cat, and I just think that I need to be honest with her.”

“Wuss. My plan will work. All I’m asking is that you follow my advice until patrol. I’ll even give you three whatever cards where I’ll do whatever you want, within reason, if you do it.” Plagg offered off handedly.

Unimpressed Adrien finally said, “whatever means whatever Plagg.”

“Like, I don’t know, I’ll listen to you gush over Ladybug without whining for a whole hour,” Plagg offered and then smirked, “or I won’t bring my Camembert into the bathroom while you’re in the shower for a week.”

“You don’t do that anyway.”

“I could start if you don’t do things my way.” Plagg replied evilly. “Moist Camembert has a certain taste that can’t be denied forever. Or I could just start upchucking some distinctly smelling hairballs into your sock drawer, shoes, underwear drawer…”

“Augh! Fine! Whatever.” Adrien then angrily pointed at Plagg, “but ONLY until patrol.” It wasn’t like he had any ideas of his own right now anyway, besides confessing outright and even though he wanted to, it still didn’t seem like the best timing.

Plagg grinned as he flew back into Adrien’s pocket as he dashed off to class, “I’m glad you see it my way.”

“Like I had a choice.” Adrien whispered as Plagg quietly cackled victoriously.


	12. Marinette Goes Out With That Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette tells Alya an important detail.  
> Alya saves Adrien and unknowingly dooms her bestie.

“So, Agreste sure cleaned up nicely today too, huh?” Alya observed to her best friend. “Is there something going on between you two?”

Marinette sputtered, “no-no Alya! I dressed up to get a guys attention.”

Leaning over to Alya, Marinette asked, “do you think it worked?”

“Gurl, I don’t know how you managed it, but you had the attention of nearly every single guy at school.”

Marinette finally allowed herself to blush as she said, “I had help.”

 _Thank you Tikki._ Marinette thought, _I had no idea she was so good with hair and makeup!_

“It was totally amazing that you managed to flirt with Anton like that in front of Adrien too! Wow! Where did you even dig him up?”

Marinette covered her mouth prettily and chuckled as she turned to her friend and whispered, “he’s my cousin. His family just got back from Spain and since he’s an actor and I haven’t seen him in months, I thought it might be fun to, you know, see if he couldn’t help me make Adrien jealous?”

Alya snorted, “Marinette! I love it! That boy was SO jealous! And that butt slap! I about died when you did that!”

Marinette chuckled, “oh, we’ve been doing that for years. He started doing that when I was still in diapers and he was three and a half. He’s only two years older than me so we’ve been known to wrestle even. We just do that to tease each other now when we’re being really stupid, it doesn’t mean anything to us.”

“You mean you get to smack that ‘hot stuff’ and it doesn’t mean anything?” Alya asked scandalized.

_Of course, I wondered why Tikki told me specifically to say that too._

“Well yeah, he is my cousin and he loved the idea of trying to either help me get over or break Adrien. He actually dared me to spank him like that, we’ve been doing it less as we’ve gotten older after all, but still, it’s not like I’d let anyone else get away with it.”

“Well, I’m with you gurl.” Looking up Alya smiled and pointed towards the door as they saw Adrien rush down the hall. “Now spin your magic spell gurl.” Alya whispered, “and knock him dead.”

Calling on her Ladybug persona, Marinette used the one chance to flirt with Adrien that Tikki allowed before the ignoring him for the rest of the day plan that Tikki had suggested earlier began. She didn’t understand it, but Tikki was certain that changing her routine and pretending to date Anton would drive Chat Noir mad.

Leaning towards Adrien as he entered the classroom and she shot him a sweet grin, winked and said in an almost sultry voice, “hey Adrien, have you finally found your way to class?”

…

Adrien swallowed as he cursed his imagination as he thought he heard Ladybug’s meaning, ‘have you found your way back to me my handsome Kitty?’

Staggering he leaned against the doorframe as he caught his breath and registered that she had spoken like that, looking like that, to him and not only that but she had smiled and winked at him!

He couldn’t respond. He couldn’t breathe.

The bell rang and their teacher said something. But Adrien didn’t understand, until she cleared her throat and said loudly, “Adrien, would you please take you seat.”

Blinking, he finally took a deep breath as he looked at his Lady as she looked away with a smug grin, as if knowing what she did to him.

Adrien barely managed a small, “yes, Madame,” as he somehow walked to his seat in front of the woman that he loved and turned around, tripping only once to the chuckles of half of the class. He was tortured by the fact that he couldn’t gaze at his Lady’s beauty because she sat right behind him and just… WOW. She was here and she didn’t even know who he was or that he loved her more than life itself.

Adrien had thought that she only had eyes for him, either side of him, but now there was this Anton, and he was worried, because Anton had a date with her and he didn’t. Adrien wished that he hadn’t agreed to Plagg’s plans.

Barely containing a snarl at the thought of them going out together, Plagg clawed him through his shirt, making him jump slightly at the reminder to pull it together.

Ugh, the only thing that he knew for sure, whether intentionally or not, was the fact that his Lady was out to kill him.

…

Lunch was torture.

Anton arrived early, with a bouquet of flowers for crying out loud, for Marinette.

His delivery was so cheesy too, and what he called her left Adrien fuming.

Anton saw Marinette leave school and he got down on one knee as he held out the flowers to her, “Marinette, my lovely Lady, would you do me the honor of going to lunch with this poor undeserving man before you? I’m totally unworthy of your presence!”

Marinette descended the stairs with uncommon grace once again, approaching during Anton’s speech and giggled as she took the flowers and then sat on his bended knee as he gave her a hug and then they both laughed!

Adrien choked as he thought, _that could have been me!_

The jerk then picked his Lady up, swung her around and kissed her on the cheek again.

Adrien didn’t know what he would have done if it weren’t for Nino, who was holding Adrien back with his arm across his chest as he tried to pull him away from the affectionate display.

Grousing, Adrien grumbled and finally allowed Nino to pull him away.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She wasn’t supposed to leave him just as he found her.

He allowed Nino to lead him to the cafeteria, numb to the world as his world went out on a date with a cad named ‘Anton.’

…

Adrien was barely aware of the conversation whispered between Alya and Nino at their lunch table. He had no idea how he’d gotten there.

He barely registered the text from Nathalie that mentioned that somehow she found a specialty cleaner that would have his room mostly clean (read that the smell will linger somewhat, but at a tolerable level and somehow it comes back sometimes) by the time he got home. He at least managed to text her back, ‘thanks.’

“Alya what’s going on, I though she had something for my man! I’ve never seen him like this.” Nino poked Adrien’s arm hard and he barely wobbled in response. “He’s gone catatonic.”

 _Good one Nino._ Adrien managed to think.

Alya answered, “Look, I’m worried too.” Then she leaned over to Nino as if he wouldn’t hear her and said, “Marinette did want to get noticed today, or something, but I don’t think she’d want him to react like this!” She waved at Adrien.

Adrien managed a blink in response.

Holding her head in one hand she sighed, “for my gurl’s sake I’m going to tell you something, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“What is it Dudette? Will it cure my Bro?”

“Maybe.” She whispered, “but only because I’m worried about his sanity and my future god-children.” Taking a deep breath she said, “Anton is an actor and her cousin. He put her up to this. I mean, she meant to make somebody jealous by making it look like a real date but it wasn’t. The whole butt slap thing? His idea, they’ve been doing that to tease each other their whole lives and it means nothing to them.”

Snapping out of it, Adrien grasped that lifeline and whisper shouted. “Wait, you mean that… that cad was just play acting and he’s her … her cousin?”

Alya nodded, “nice to have you back with us.”

Adrien relaxed in his seat and came alive with the knowledge that he hadn’t lost her, but was tinged with the knowledge that he’d been tricked.

“It’s good to be back.” Adrien told his friends as he thought with a smirk, _well played my Lady, well played. Plagg, your plans are a go. Let’s get her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be a week before the next chapter comes out, what I've got so far for it is so short and just not funny enough, so I'm thinking about going in a different direction with it, but if I do it just might be over the top, hmm, this story is all about that though, so hmm. I'll think about it.
> 
> I hope you like this chapter though. Happy Thanksgiving!


	13. Ah, the Threat of an Akuma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chat Noir begins his phase one of getting Marinette to figure out who he is, oh and he has a surprise for Anton too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly longer chapter here, about 2000 words and we're nearing the end. Just a couple chapters left probably.  
> Now, time to let Chat mess with Anton.

After claiming to need the bathroom, Adrien met with Plagg and discussed strategy as Plagg gushed about how devious his wonderful Sugarcube was and commented that this was the most fun that he had had in decades.

Having received his instructions, Adrien made a quick phone call and then checked the clock, they had roughly forty-five minutes before Marinette returned from her ‘lunch date’ with her cousin Anton.

Adrien didn’t care what he had to do. He was going to win himself his Lady, but first, the cats were going to play…

…

Marinette and Anton were walking up the street to her school hand in hand.

Anton leaned over and whispered to his giggling cousin, “so how’d I do?”

“Well, I guess you did okay. I mean it couldn’t have gotten any worse.” She teased as she fought back a snort.

“Hey! Look what you gave me to work with here!” He said in a funny voice as he waved at her with his free hand. “You gotta admit here, it wasn’t all that much, you’re still wearing training bras for crying out loud.”

“Hey, I am not!” Marinette protested.

Suddenly, a large black cat landed in their path. “You know, that’s no way to speak to a Lady.” Chat Noir scolded Anton.

“Chat Noir!” Marinette, Ladybug, answered in shock. Anton glanced at his cousin, the look on his face told Chat Noir enough, she hadn’t told him that they were putting on an act for a superhero.

Adrien was going to have so much fun with this.

“Yes, I happen to go by that name, my lovely Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Chat Noir bowed and took her hand, kissing the back of her hand as a crowd gathered around them. “Unfortunately, I happen to have come here in response to the threat of an akuma.” He glared at Anton and then at Anton’s hand in Marinette’s hand. Anton got the message and quickly let go.

“An akuma?” Anton’s voice rose an octave. “Where? Where?” He looked around, scared to death at the thought of an evil little butterfly. Marinette shook her head shamefully, her cool date just turned into the whiniest of wimps.

“You’ve got to save us Chat Noir!” Anton pleaded.

“Oh, there isn’t an akuma yet.” Chat easily replied, “I said that there was a threat of one.” He sauntered over to Marinette and pulled out his baton as he wrapped his clawed hand around her waist protectively. “I’m afraid that you’re going to have to come with me Princess.” Then he raised an eyebrow at her with a wide grin. “I’ve already told Mr. Damocles that you’ll be out this afternoon so I can protect you.”

“You’re just going to leave me here?” Anton almost screeched.

Chat Noir angled his head and looked at Anton in confusion. “Look, you’re the one who has threatened this fine city with an akuma, sir.” He said formally, “Marinette is the target here, I ran across her classmate, all roughed up because he tried to stop her.”

“Her?” Anton looked at his cousin in shock.

Marinette looked at Chat Noir suspiciously, “my classmate?”

Chat Noir rolled his eyes, “Princess, surely you remember Adrien Agreste?” She looked at him in shock as her face went pale at the thought as Chat continued, “he flagged me down after one of his fellow models went into a raging fit, tearing up the set at their photoshoot because her boyfriend,” Chat Noir looked at Anton meaningfully, “was so inconsiderate as to take out another woman.”

“Wha…” Marinette started to protest as Anton said at the same time.

“Bu, bu…” Anton couldn’t form a word apparently.

“ANTON!” A well-dressed woman wailed as she powerwalked through the crowd that had gathered around the cousins and Chat Noir, screaming her head off with murder in her eyes. “I’M GOING TO GET THAT LITTLE, ugh, GET OUT OF MY WAY!” She shrugged some people aside, yelling some more as she came after Marinette and Anton. “I’LL GET YOU, YOU LITTLE….”

“And that’s our cue.” Chat Noir pulled a startled Marinette to his side as he vaulted them away as the woman latched onto a very startled and frightened Anton as she angrily pulled the confused young actor down the street and away from the school, scolding him every step of the way.

“You have SOoooo much explaining to do MR.!!!!”

Landing on a roof a few buildings down the street, they watched as the woman pulled, shoved and angrily accused Anton of cheating on her as she dragged him away from the school. Anton was so surprised he didn’t know how to respond. That stutter he worked so hard to defeat? It was back in full force.

“Bu… Bu…but sweetheart?!” Anton tried to get the woman to listen but she just kept raging until they were out of hearing range.

Marinette giggled, “Ok Kitty, I’ve got to admit that was a good one.” She lifted her fist out to his, “pound it?”

He chuckled as he raised his own fist to hers with a wide grin on his face, “pound it.”

“So, since I need to protect you for a little while before returning you to school,” he purred, “why don’t you come with me to get a little… dessert?”

“Kitty, you’re such a flirt.” She sighed, “but you know what? After all that drama, I think that you’ve earned it.”

“Really?” He asked eagerly.

“Really.” She chuckled as he let out a whoop, jumped up in the air and spun around because he was so happy.

…

After they found a good place for her to transform, he took her over to Andre the ice cream man’s cart and he bought her some ice cream. He was happy that her ice cream matched either of his identities. _Ah, just more proof that we were meant to be_ , he mentally purred.

“Ok, Kitty, now it’s story time. You’ve got to tell me how you did all of that! I’ve been meaning to get Anton for ages, but he has always seen it coming. How did you manage to pull that off?”

Chat Noir snorted, “well, I’ll be honest, I noticed how lovely you looked today.” He gave her a quick once over, “as always.”

“Chat.” She swatted his arm gently, “you’re making me blush.”

“Something I intend to do as often as possibly My Lady.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it and she really did blush, causing Chat Noir to smile wider in return.

“Now honestly, how did you do that?”

Her Kitty laughed, “alright fine. It was a joint effort. Apparently, your little display did not go unnoticed by your model friend.”

“Oh.” She looked sad for a moment, but she quickly smiled at him again.

“I’ll admit it was very strange to be flagged down by one of your admirers,” he cleared his throat to see her reaction, she looked away and blushed even more. “Although I think this Chat and your model friend love you equally.”

Marinette looked a little sad at that before she answered, “you’re wrong Chat. Adrien only likes Ladybug, Marinette is just a friend.” She sighed, “it’s not something I let myself think about much, because it’s a bit well, sad.”

“Why don’t we agree to disagree Purr-incess? I know Adrien well enough to know that statement isn’t true.”

Unconvinced, Marinette replied, “if you say so Chat.”

_I’m beginning to think revealing myself to her will be quite a shock, but Plagg does have an excellent plan. I just hope we don’t break her._ Adrien thought.

So Chat Noir returned to his story, “anyway, Adrien was all flustered about your little act and had overheard your friend Alya say that it wasn’t real,"  _Sorry Alya._ He mentally apologized, "which frankly my Lady while very well done, it didn’t make sense, that Anton was hardly good looking enough for you.”

“And what do you mean by that Cat?” Marinette demanded, not sure if she should be defending Anton that way, but he was her cousin.

He held up his hands in surrender, “well, it didn’t make sense, I mean, come on My Lady, on a scale of 1 to 10, from eww to WOW, you’re a 12. Practically a goddess.” He waved his hand as he brushed off his next statement, “Anton is at best a 7.”

“Uh huh, and what would you be my dear Kitty Cat?”

He grinned, “why, I’m a solid ten, just like your Adrien Agreste.”

She chuckled, “I highly doubt that Kitty.”

“I don't consider myself narcissistic My Lady, but I'd be lying if I didn't have an idea about how the world views me, unfortunately looks are highly important in my day job."

"They must have pretty low standards then Kitty." She teased.

"Hey!"

"Just kidding," she glanced at him before looking away and admitting as she shyly brushed a loose hair behind her ear, "even I know you've got to be pretty attractive."

Adrien's heart swelled with joy at that statement, it meant so much coming from his Lady and his Princess after all. "Oh, I bet that once you know who I am and have seen my face, you’ll come running into my arms and finally give me the kind of kiss that will make me forget all of my lonely nights without you.” He then smirked like he was absolutely sure that this will happen.

“Uh huh, like that’s going to happen.” He pouted and she rolled her eyes, “but what I still don’t get, and this is the part where I knew it wasn’t real, is where did you get Anton a girlfriend? He’s only been in town for a short while and I KNOW he wouldn’t have gone through with today if he was seeing anyone.”

Chat snorted, “so he forgot that he didn’t have a girlfriend?”

“Apparently the threat of an akuma and a scary screaming woman was enough to get him to forget that.” She laughed. “Now where did you find her?”

“Oh, that was Adrien," he waved it off, "he knew a model that was trying to broaden her resume and jumped at the opportunity to mess with someone. She’s going to be hoarse tomorrow, but I think you’d agree that she did an excellent job, especially after such short notice.”

“How much time did she have?” Marinette wondered.

“About forty-five minutes, but she was good wasn’t she?”

“She was an amazing actress.”

“Yep, Adrien is going to have to give her a glowing review.”

“That was her price?”

“Yep, and a couple of signed photos for her sister.” Chat chuckled. “He was glad to do it too.”

“But I didn’t see him there.” She almost sulked.

“Oh, he was watching. I’m sure that if his father caught him in any photos that were taken during all of that he’d be grounded for a week, that's why he hid his face.”

_Come on My Lady, I'm right here!_ He internally shouted.

“Wow, you really know Adrien’s father.”

“No more than Adrien actually, the man has a reputation.” He shot her a wink and then glanced up at the sky, “well, I do have to get going My Lady, this cat has some paw-ior activates scheduled, shall I escort you back to school?”

“I’m fine Kitty. I think I can make it back there myself.” She pulled out her yo-yo and started to spin it.

_I guess that means that phase two is a go._

He nodded, but quickly added almost shyly, “My Lady? Adrien wanted me to pass on a message, for Marinette, something that I could tell her while I was watching over her.”

“Oh?”

“He hoped that you wouldn’t be upset and would forgive him for his part in all of this, and he kind of hoped that he could give you a call tonight before our patrol so he could apologize to you in person?” He hesitantly asked.

With a small grin, she replied as she swung her yo-yo out and caught something with it. “Of course, not that an apology is necessary here, but anything for one of my two favorite guys.” She then winked at him, saluted with two fingers and then gave her yo-yo a pull, “see you tonight Chat!” She called out as she flew away.

“Oh, sooner than you think Princess, sooner than you think.” He whispered into the wind as he watched her fly away with a hand over his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a little longer because it required a full rewrite.   
> Originally it was Adrien than came in to "save" the day, but it wasn't the right kind of sappy and got a little mean for a moment, then sappy again. It wasn't funny enough. I think having Chat show up was the best thing possible because it was a nice little blend of funny and sweet + clues.


	14. The Calm Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette waits for her call from Adrien as something arrives at her house for her.
> 
> This is a bit longer than earlier chapters, but still, enjoy some fluff before the real fun begins in the next chapter...

“Oh, Tikki! Adrien’s going to call soon! What should I say?”

Tikki had been nibbling on a cookie contemplatively, she knew that Plagg and Chat Noir were waiting for just the right time to surprise her Ladybug. She needed to prepare her… somehow.

“Oh, Marinette! You worry too much. He just wants to apologize about his part in all of this,” she waved her little paw, “and make sure that everything was okay between you two.”

 _I wonder if it’s okay to apologize about something someone doesn’t know that you’re apologizing for, or to apologize before your big surprise. Poor Marinette, she won’t know what hit her._ Tikki briefly pouted.

Marinette rolled her eyes, “you know I’ve known Adrien for so long as a friend and I like him enough that there really isn’t much that he could do for me to not like him, right?”

 _You say that now._ Tikki thought, _let’s see what you say after patrol and he tells you who he is._

“Well, maybe,” Tikki hesitated, “has your opinion of Chat Noir changed because of all of this?”

_Please understand that Chat’s this and Adrien’s this is the EXACT same things!_

Marinette snorted, “oh no, not really. If anything, I’ve learned how fun it is to tease him and he’s taken it pretty well, which kind of makes me like him more in a way. Hmmm… after getting him to fall off the balcony and the whole cheese incident and all of that I kind of feel bad about all of this. What do you think Tikki?”

Tikki sighed thoughtfully, “well, have you ever heard of the phrase ‘the eye of the storm’?”

“No, what does it mean?”

“Well, it’s a reference to hurricanes. They kind of move slowly over all, but the real damage is just before you get to the eye of the storm. It’s kind of like the storm gets stronger and stronger, then it’s all eerily calm for a short while once you reach the eye of the storm. Then the eye passes and it’s as horrible as it ever was until you get to the edge and it finally passes.”

Marinette looked at her thoughtfully. “So, you don’t think that we’re done? That Chat Noir might be planning something?”

_Yes! I knew you’d get it!_

Nodding her head Tikki replied, “if I know Plagg, those cats are planning something devious. You need to be on your guard Marinette. Something is brewing and it’s not tea.”

Marinette chuckled as she patted Tikki’s head, “well, there’s two hours until patrol now. Adrien asked if he could call me so he’ll be calling any time if he gets the chance.”

“Well, don’t be upset if he can’t call.”

Marinette shook her head, “how could I be? I know he had another photoshoot earlier and sometimes those run over. It means so much to me that he wanted to call me, really.”

“That doesn’t mean that Chat Noir doesn’t have anything planned. He worked with Adrien today too after all, remember?”

Marinette thought for a moment. “Yeah, actually that didn’t make much sense. Why would Adrien, the sweetheart that he is, want to prank or tease me?”

Tikki mentally face-palmed, _how can she not see that the two boys are one and the same?_

“Well, maybe he has a hidden sense of humor, like Chat Noir’s maybe?” Tikki tried to suggest only for her comment to fall on deaf ears.

“Ooohh!” Marinette shrieked, “I just remembered what Chat said! He said that Adrien was flustered too after seeing me today!” Marinette was now hugging a pillow and she rolled on her back on her chaise, giggling madly.

 _And I’ve lost her._ Tikki mourned.

…

“Marinette!” Marinette’s mother called out to her daughter with glee a few minutes later. “You really need to come down here!” Then she laughed.

Frowning at the sound of her mother’s voice, because happy parents could only mean something embarrassing, Marinette came down and was astonished at what she saw.

 _That Cat!_ Marinette mentally scolded.

…

Sabine was chuckling as Marinette scanned their little living room with her mouth gaping.

There were flower arrangements everywhere. There wasn’t a counter or table without one.

Sabine’s smile was wide and proud for a moment as she let the reality of everything sink in for Marinette, as she remembered the note that came for Sabine herself.

…

 **Dear Ms. Dupain-Cheng** ,

 **I** can only pray that I have your blessing to court your daughter, but in order to do so, I need your help. The flowers are to take her breath away and the dress is for tonight.

 **You** see, she’s going to think that she needs to sneak out to see me, so don’t be surprised if she goes missing, I’ll have her home by midnight at the absolute latest. We have a reservation at one of the restaurants in the Eiffel Tower at 9:00pm. Usually dinner only takes an hour and a half, but I’d like to treat her to some dessert and a moonlit stroll before I bring her home if she’s up to it. My bodyguard will keep an eye on us and since he reports to my father, you don’t need to worry about anything inappropriate, I just wanted to surprise her as I confess my feelings to her tonight and let you know what our plans are.

(Well, it wasn’t a school night and we’ve let her out with friends that late before…so just this once maybe? Sabine thought.)

 **So** , to get to the great big favor that I’m begging you for to make this night complete, I need your help in saying that you have no idea who the flowers or dress are from. Please have her try on the dress and get ready to go out, say you want to see the whole effect or something.

 **The** plan is that I will be calling her and giving her a clue to where I am, so tell her to keep the dress on to show me. After we talk on Facetime, I’m pretty sure that she’ll come running to see me to accept me or to throttle me for being just a little over the top tonight.

(Sabine had snickered at that, because that told her that he knew her daughter pretty well.)

 **Once** again, I’m sorry about having to be so sneaky, so please forgive me. I just wanted to make this special for her and a night for her to remember. Marinette would have suspected something if I showed up at your house without a reason to ask if it was okay for me to court her with the intention that someday, she’ll be my bride.

(Sabine had snorted at that one, not that she minded because she liked this boy, having already seen who signed it.)

 **I’ll** make sure that we get pictures for you tonight if she says yes.

 **I** promise that I will watch out for your daughter as if she was my whole world and honestly, she is, she is my everything and I want to be there for her until the end of time. Thank you so much for raising such a wonderful young woman.

 **I’ve** enclosed a little something for you and her father, so you may have your own night out soon. Thank you so much for your help.

 **From** your hopefully soon to be Son in Law,

**Adrien Agreste**

 

Sabine had the widest smile, the note was a bit over the top, but the two dozen arrangements around their home was just as much so and it spoke of the young man’s sincerity. Although he was a bit young to mention marriage, it was kind of nice to know that he wanted to date her daughter with that end in mind.

Tom was just finishing up a new recipe in the bakery, but she knew that she didn’t need to discuss this with him. They’d already agreed that Adrien would be good for Marinette and that she’d be good for him. The two gift cards for a night on the town for them was a sweet gesture.

Sabine tucked the little note for her that came with everything else in her pocket as she pulled out the dress box.

“Sweetheart, that’s not all,” She called over to her shocked daughter, “this came with it.”

Marinette seemed to be going from shock to happiness to irritation, to absolutely floored as her mother gushed as she pulled her new dress out, “I’d love to see you in this!”

“Maman!” Marinette was shocked, “what, where?” The dress was a Gabriel Agreste original evening gown, not too fancy but amazing all the same. She was mesmerized as the light blue on the top blended into the dark blue of the bodice and down into the midnight blue skirt, with properly placed rhinestones all over the skirt like stars.

Taking a deep breath Marinette asked, “Maman! Where did this all come from and how do you know that it was for me?”

“It was just delivered for you sweetheart.” Her mother only smiled and shrugged, “whoever it’s from, they have good taste. This dress matches your eyes wonderfully!” She gushed. “Now go put it on! I want to see it!”

“But Maman! Adrien is supposed to call me on Facetime any minute!”

“All the better, that way you can you show him too! Don’t forget to touch up your hair and makeup, I want to see the whole effect sweetheart.”

Knowing that she had no choice, Marinette took the dress and the matching shoes that came with it and trudged up to her room as she tried to think of ways to skin a cat.

…

After getting all dressed up and touching up her hair and makeup, Marinette went down and spun around for her mother and father, who were both grinning madly.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” She asked.

“Sorry Breadstick,” her father wiped a tear from his eye, “you just look so beautiful.”

“We’re so proud of you Honey.” Her mother added. Then with a knowing glance at her father she added, “You’d better go on upstairs, you don’t want to keep Adrien waiting!”

Marinette blushed and answered knowing that they would be going to bed soon, “sure thing Maman, thank you and goodnight!”

…

As soon as she closed the trapdoor to her room, Marinette gasped, “come on Tikki! Help me out of this!” She said as she tried to reach for the hidden zipper, “I don’t want Adrien to see me in this!”

“Why not Marinette?” Tikki froze in midair, this may be over the top but you had to admit that it was romantic after all.

“It was probably Chat Noir that sent it, he’s the one that’s been romancing me for all this time, it’s just like him! You watch, he’s going to do something at our patrol to humiliate me or something!”

“Marinette!” Tikki scolded, “aren’t you jumping to conclusions? Chat Noir would never want to humiliate you. It could have been Adrien that sent it too, and you like them both, right?”

“Oh my gosh Tikki! You’re right!” The dress was a Gabriel original after all.

That’s when she got an alert on her phone, Adrien was trying to contact her.

“I can’t do this Tikki! I- I’ll say that I went to bed or I ran out of battery or …”

“Marinette!” Tikki stomped her little foot in the air. “You are Ladybug and you can talk to a boy if you want to, it’s time to face him.”

 _Or them, let’s not be picky._ Tikki thought as she then flew over to the phone, picked it up, opened the app and dropped the phone in Marinette’s startled hands.

After a quick fumble, Marinette recovered and saw one of her favorite guys on the other side of the screen.

“H-Hey, Adrien!”

“Hey Marinette!”

“WOW!!! you look amazing!” Adrien grinned at her, “are you going somewhere? I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“N-no, you’re not interrupting and I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. I uh, well, honestly someone sent me a bunch of flowers, and I mean A LOT of flowers and this outfit for me so I tried it on because Maman insisted. The thing is I don’t know who sent it.” She looked at him hopefully.

He looked thoughtful for a moment and smiled, “oh, you must have a secret admirer then,” he nodded his head minutely, “totally understandable.”

“Oh.” She looked a little sad as she bit her lip thoughtfully.

He cleared his throat as he waved his hand, “I’ll keep it brief then, I just wanted to apologize about my part in all of this, I just wanted to help.”

“Well, Chat Noir does need all the help he can get.” She blushed and teased.

Adrien chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “so, uh, do you think that he might be your secret admirer?” Adrien asked.

“Well, this may be silly, all of this is more of his style, but I honestly thought that it might be, well, I don’t know…” she hesitated because she was fairly certain that she was wrong now that they had spoken.

“Go ahead, you can tell me Princess.” Adrien encouraged, even though Marinette was too lost in thought to catch the nickname.

She bit her lip and blushed before she admitted, “I-I thought that it might all be f-from you?”

Adrien blushed and nervously answered, “well, I’ll admit that I have been seeing you differently lately Mari, and Chat Noir and I both had wondered how beautiful you would be if you wore something that matched your eyes like uh, what you’re wearing. Not that what you were wearing earlier wasn’t flattering, I mean, uh, you’re gorgeous, uh, the dress right, it was gorgeous on you! T-today!”

Adrien was embarrassed from being so tongue tied and for messing whatever he wanted to say up and Marinette blushed just a little for him.

“It’s okay Adrien. Take a breath.” He did. “Is there something that you wanted to t-tell me?”

…

Marinette thought randomly, _I’m glad I’m not the only one that can get all flustered when we talk sometimes._

“Yeah,” Adrien steeled himself and then blurted, “I was kind of hoping that maybe you’d go out with me sometime?”

Marinette shrieked, “YES! I’d love to!”

“Wonderful, I uh, I’ve got a prior engagement that I’ve got to get to tonight, but um, would you like to talk for a bit? I’ve got like, five minutes before I have to get cleaned up to go.” He said nervously.

“You look fine, I mean nice the way you look now.” She blushed.

“Well, thank you, but I just got back from a long photoshoot, I really need to clean up before I head out, but enough about me, so uh, how was your day Marinette?” Adrien asked.

Marinette was more than glad to tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably guess what's coming, I know I've enjoyed writing this story, but we had to get this fluff out of the way before any of that happened.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for all the great comments and kudos! They're fuel for this writer to write!


	15. Someone Forgets to Hang Up...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette and Adrien had a lovely conversation and then Adrien says goodbye... without hanging up.
> 
> Leading to a revelation and Marinette's reaction...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, the long awaited chapter...

7:40pm

After having yet another lovely chat with Adrien on Facetime, Adrien finally said goodbye to Marinette.

“I’m sorry Marinette, but I’ve really got to get going.” He cleared his throat, “I uh, I have a special meeting to get ready for.” He smiled at her adoringly with a sigh.

“So late at night?” She wondered.

Adrien shrugged, “It’s not too bad, I’m purr-ty flexible after all.”

Marinette blinked, _he did not just say a cat pun._ She thought. _I must be tired or something, after all of this drama with Chat Noir and now Adrien has me hearing things._

“I have a feline though that what happens at this meeting will be really important for our future.” Adrien smiled just for her once more and then she could have sworn he winked at her just like Chat Noir would have.

She blinked and shook her head, as she thought, _nope not going there!_

“Anyhow, I’ll see you later Mari.” He waved at her and she waved back.

“See you later Adrien.” She smiled as he tapped something on his phone, showing her the rear camera view instead of shutting down his phone as he set it down in its charging station where she could see him in the background gathering stuff as he walking in and out of the screen’s view, he had a huge room after all.

She was about to hang up on her side of the call when Tikki flew to her hand and whispered, “don’t you dare Marinette!”

“Ugh, here’s you reward, just get it out of my face.” Adrien practically grunted in the back ground, not sounding like himself at all really, but Marinette could still tell that it was him. She’d never heard him being annoyed before, that’s all. His tone changed once more as he added, “Thanks for behaving this time though.”

Then a little white thing appeared on the screen, and it bounced up and down in the middle of his room, but a piece of it disappeared!

There was a loud snort and then there was another male voice that asked, “why do you always have to take a shower before we head out kid? It’s not like ANYONE can smell you.”

Another third of the floating white thing disappeared.

“Two reasons, she may not know it, but I want to be the best that I can be for her and it’s because I really, really, like her.” He cleared his throat and she could hear more shuffling in the background.

Marinette’s heart throbbed painfully at that sentence. _Adrien has a girl he likes._ She thought. _And he’s getting ready to go out and meet her._ She sighed and reached out to turn off the phone with a broken heart, but Tikki got in her way and shook her head as she rolled her eyes at her before returning to watch the screen.

Tikki then whispered, “pay attention Marinette!” The last of the white thing disappeared, which was really weird. Tikki rolled her eyes before whispering. “You know, now that I think of it, all of this was a bit melodramatic wasn’t it?”

Then Marinette blinked dramatically, _wait. Why would Adrien be getting dressed up to see another girl when he just asked me out? He did ask me out, right?_

“Hush Tikki!” Marinette whispered as she saw Adrien take off his suit coat that he’d worn back from the photoshoot.

“Second, the last thing I want to do is smell like THAT when I go to see her Plagg.” Adrien pointed out irritably as he started to take off his tie.

_Plagg, where have I heard that name?_

There was a loud snort, “just because you can’t appreciate the subtleties of the great gooiness of Camembert, that doesn’t mean that the LOVE of your life doesn’t. It’s not like she would even be able to tell either way ADRIEN once you have the suit on. We’ve got like over an hour, why don’t we just take a nice long nap before your rendezvous at the tower?” the other voice teased.

Marinette blinked, she was dreaming, right?

Adrien dropped the tie and addressed the area that had the white thing in it a minute before as he waved off the idea. “No way, I’m going to go wash up, get dressed up and then we’ll suit up and head out. After all, we can’t leave My Lady waiting, that would just be a cat-astrophy!”

Adrien then smirked with a very familiar smirk as he unbuttoned his top shirt button before heading out of the screen and presumably into his bathroom.

_Wait, My Lady?_ That question flew through Marinette’s mind as so many clues from the past few days hit her like an atomic bomb as her thoughts collied a moment later.

_A rendezvous at the tower?_

_Cat puns?_

_Chat._

…

Seeing Marinette’s sudden reaction, her frozen look as her mouth gaped open and closed like a fish as she tried to speak or something because the poor girl was in shook, Tikki hung up the phone before Adrien could further mess with her chosen’s mind.

“Ok Marinette. You can do this… Marinette?” Tikki addressed her chosen, but she was already mentally gone.

Of course, Marinette handled the news a lot better than expected, all of Adrien’s clues over the past two days had prepared her for it without her knowing it, for this… this unthinkable dream that had finally come true.

What no one had prepared her for was the almost knee jerk reaction that came after the initial shock wore off (that lasted several minutes longer than anyone would have expected). Because now she was calling upon her transformation and flying over to Chat Noir’s house faster than she had ever gone before and throwing herself through his open window and landing right in front of a surprised but pleased Adrien Agreste.

Releasing her transformation, she stood up and she was greeted by the bare chest of her partner and longtime crush, Adrien Agreste.

Because there he was, still toweling off his wet hair and wearing just a pair of dress pants. His bare chest mocked her.

_See if you can say one word normally. I dare you!_

Which is probably why she short circuited and fainted.

…

Marinette supposed later that it was a delayed reaction to the shock that her crush was her partner that she’d just started to fall for too. Plus, he had showered to smell good for her, they had actually discussed becoming more than friends a little already over that last call when he asked her out and of course adding to the top of that emotional pile was the fact that he was shirtless.

Shirtless!

She woke up in his arms, but couldn’t move from the shock and the position that she was in.

She’d died and gone to heaven.

…

“Plagg! We’ve killed her!” The other male voice she had heard earlier was cackling madly nearby.

“I win Tikki!” The voice cried out, “my kid couldn’t function for the first twenty minutes lol!”

Tikki giggled, “I hardly call this functioning Plagg.”

“Plagg! There’s no time for that! I wanted to make this easy for her! Not freak her out! Oh man, we’ve so messed up!” Adrien was looking over his shoulder at their kwami as he shook his head at them as he carried Marinette over to his couch, cradling her in his arms.

Not knowing what to do, he just sat down, held her and rocked her, trying to comfort her. He didn’t realize that she was literally sitting on his lap and in his arms while he was noticeably underdressed. He was too worried about her.

If she could talk, she wouldn’t complain about the position either. She totally realized that she was literally sitting in his lap and in his arms while he was noticeably underdressed. She was just letting the news sink in…. not taking advantage of the situation at all… right.

“Come on Bugaboo, it’s not so awful that I am who I am, is it?” Adrien pleaded as he hugged her close as he rocked her gently.

Tikki kindly asked Plagg, “maybe you should tell him?”

Plagg laughed, “come on Sugarcube! This is hilarious, come on just a few more minutes!”

Tikki giggled with an added shrug, “well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt, it’s not like she’s complaining.”

_Thank you Tikki._ Marinette thought with a smile and almost purred as she leaned into Adrien’s shoulder, not that he noticed being so stressed out thinking that he’d thrown her into shock or something.

Adrien looked at their kwami for a moment then asked, “what are you two hiding? I’m beginning to think you’re up to something.”

Plagg snorted, “well, I guess I’ll fess up.” He smirked at Tikki conspiratorially and she just giggled again, “if you want her to talk Kid, then you’d better put her down and let go of her. She looks like she’s about to pass out again.” Plagg cackled.

“Oh?” Adrien looked down at her and she blushed as red as her suit as his grin lit up her world as she was caught enjoying his embrace.

She managed to smile nervously and give a halfhearted wave before blushing a slightly darker shade as she tucked her face into his shoulder.

“My Lady, Marinette… you’re awake!” Adrien managed to say with a smile before he sweetly asked sincerely, “are you okay?” She leaned back to look at him as he brushed a lock of her hair out of her face lovingly and gave her that adoring glance of his that tended to make Marinette speak nonsensically for an hour afterwards.

So, of course Marinette, Ladybug, wasn’t even able to speak, at all, but at least she managed to blink, once before giving him the slightest of nods yes.

He was holding her in his arms shirtless after all.

Concerned that she was in shock, Adrien asked her again if she was alright as he stood up and put her down on the couch, sitting her up. Then he put his hands on her shoulders as he knelt down before her, “L-Ladybug,” he cleared his throat before he gazed into her eyes and she tried not to get lost in his own, although she had to fight to keep her eyes from drifting downward to try to count his if he had a six pack or an eight pack.

“Are you alright Princess?” He asked kindly.

“S-Shirt!” She barely managed to whisper as she pointed at his bare chest, glad that she was able to keep herself from drooling over her partner completely, over Adrien Agreste, in front of him!

Looking down briefly and realizing that he didn’t have a shirt on, Adrien, the Adrien Agreste laughed lightly and then sweetly smirked as he stood up, letting go of her shoulders once he was sure that she wasn’t going to pass out again as he struck a pose for her. “You know, I don’t know if I want to. I kind of like seeing your paw-some reaction to me, My Lady.”

With her eyes ironically bugging out, Marinette managed to stutter, “p-please?”

“For you?” He nodded kindly. “Of course, Bugaboo.” Before he left though, he put his hands on her shoulders one more time as he gazed at her lovingly, letting his hands trail down her arms until he held both of her hands in his own, then he lifted them and kissed the back of each hand before releasing them as he gave her a playful wink, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

As he disappeared into his closet, he heard her gasp as she took a deep breath of air.

He smiled to himself as he realized that he had done that to her.

“Well Purr-incess,” he called out, “we have reservations at the tower for two in about an hour. I promised your mother that we’d take some pictures and I was hoping that we could go for a moonlight stroll and or get ice cream together afterwards. Does that sound good?”

He walked out of the closet and stood in its doorway. He was wearing a belt and a white dress shirt with a blue tie that matched her dress hanging over his shoulders. He had a blazer on that matched the dress slacks he was wearing too. He hadn’t buttoned the shirt yet. “Well, My Lady, what do you think? Think this outfit’s the cat’s meow?”

After all, Adrien had finally got over his mild embarrassment over the situation and allowed himself to look up at his Lady and sighed as she took his breath away, she looked gorgeous over the phone but in real life she was a goddess!

…

Marinette meanwhile had stood and started to pace his room once he left, coming to a stop in front of him when he came out. She gave him a once over and let her blush return as she gave him an appraising look of her own.

“WOW Princess. The screen just does not do you justice, you look Meow-velous!” He eventually gushed with a hand held over his heart.

Tikki twittered and Plagg snorted.

After finding Ladybug courage, she sauntered up to him, and gave him a knowing smile. With him melting as she approached him, Adrien automatically leaned against the doorframe, afraid that he was about to lose his balance.

She glanced at his exposed chest but then started to hum as she started to button his shirt buttons for him, not that he wasn’t used to getting help like that from time to time as a model, but it meant something else to him coming from Marinette. He swallowed as she buttoned his top button and then tied his tie for him, finally looking up into his eyes once more.

“You’ll have to tuck that in.” She told him with a smile.

“H-huh?”

“Your shirt.” She smiled as she took a closer look at him and took a finger and stroked his cheek right where his mask would have ended, then cupped his cheeks with both of her hands. “It really is you, isn’t it Kitty?” She asked in awe.

He smirked, “yeah. Feline a little overwhelmed My Lady? My… Marinette.” He smiled at her as he wrapped one hand around her waist and drew her closer to him and his other hand he placed on top of her hand on his cheek as he nuzzled her hand.

“I’ll admit I’m little nervous, A-Adrien,” she whispered as she was about to lean in for a kiss and he bent down to meet her…

Tikki loudly cleared her throat. “Ahem.”

Plagg cackled, “you two better get going, don’t you have a reservation to get to?”

“Reservation?” Marinette asked as she let go of Adrien’s face, having not actually heard Adrien’s plans as he explained them while he was in the closet. He held onto her hand though as they both turned to look at their kwami. “What reservation?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping that we could have that date tonight Mari.” Adrien cleared his throat a little as he brushed the back of his neck with his free hand, as he would when he was nervous. “Assuming of course that you’ll accept this alley cat as yours Milady?” He gave her another grin that took her breath away for a moment.

Marinette eventually chuckled, “you would do something over the top like that, and yes, you are my Kitty after all, I would love to say that you’re mine and that I’m yours.”

“Forever and ever Princess.” He grinned his brightest at her as he offered her his arm, “shall we My Lady?”

She nodded as she took his arm and was about to allow him to lead her out of his room and to their ride, “yes, we shall. Together forever Minou.”

“Together Forever.” He answered in agreement before turning towards her and cupping her face with one hand as he gave her the first of many sweet kisses that he would give her over many, many years to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this sort of concludes the story, I do have an epilogue written about the reactions at school that kind of takes into account the Chameleon episode although it's not really referenced. It's about the media fallout and how the news is taken etc. It's not as lighthearted as the rest of the story, because no pranks (well, I guess it depends on how you look at it lol) it includes reactions from Alya, Nino, Chloe and Lila but not in that order.
> 
> My question is, should I write a chapter in between this chapter 15 and the epilogue I have? It would probably be mostly Fluff since they'd be on their first actual date.


	16. First Date Fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien takes out his Lady and is a little over the top.

“Adrien, I think I need to go back home for a minute, I forgot to bring my coat.” Marinette said worriedly, having forgotten the slight chill in the air in her rush over as they walked down the mansion’s staircase.

“Ah, ah, ah, My Lady.” Adrien wagged his finger as they reached the entryway to his home. “I prepared for every eventuality.” He stopped by the coat rack and selected a new coat that was in her size and didn’t clash with the skirt of the dress. “For you.”

She eyed him as he helped her put it on, “you mean Nathalie did.”

“I helped.” He pouted then waved his hands, “I am the one that came up with everything after all, she actually talked me out of a few things.” He assed sheepishly.

“Like what?” Marinette gave him a curious look and he couldn’t help but tell her.

“Tickets to a show.” He answered meekly as he put on his own jacket.

“We probably wouldn’t have had time for that.” She smiled at him.

He shrugged, “as she pointed out, we can do that another time.”

She grinned as he implied that this wasn’t going to be their first date, of course they were going out now, but it was nice to hear. “What else?” She wondered.

“Renting the Gardens for a private dinner under the stars.”

She giggled, “That’s a good idea, it’s just too chilly tonight.”

“As Nathalie pointed out.” Adrien agreed, then he selected two matching scarves, and he helped her put hers on before he put his own on. “She also told me that renting out the whole restaurant probably would be a bit over the top for a first date.” Adrien shrugged, “although Chloe said it would have been sweet.”

“Wait, you told Chloe we were going out?” Marinette asked as she finished straightening his scarf for him.

“Well, she is my friend and I wanted a girl’s perspective on all of this, I just couldn’t risk getting it wrong Princess. Uh, is that okay that I told her I was finally taking the love of my life out to dinner tonight?” He gave her that melt Marinette into a puddle grin of his.

Marinette giggled as she shivered, barely able to hold up under the look he gave her, “it’s fine Adrien, you probably should have waited to tell her until I had said yes to being your girlfriend first though.” She bopped him on the nose teasingly with a finger like she sometimes did with Chat Noir.

“Duly noted.” He replied as he wiggled his nose, “I’ll remember that next time.” He leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

Marinette blushed in response as he led her to the door and he opened it as he told her, “Your carriage awaits Princess.”

Marinette gasped at the sight before her.

…

“When you said carriage, I didn’t think that you would mean it literally.” Marinette finally voiced as Adrien led her to it. She was impressed, a horse drawn carriage? Really?

“Only the best for my Bugaboo.” Adrien smirked as he helped her into the carriage.

With a sigh she answered, “I’m going to have to get used to this aren’t I?”

“What is that My Lady?” Adrien’s smile was infectious as he sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

“The over the top romantic gestures… the nicknames.” She smiled at him and then whispered in his ear, “my Chaton.”

Blushing and grinning from ear to ear he nodded, “of course I want to spoil you, you’re My Lady, Milady.”

She blushed and giggled a little as she leaned into him, “I’m okay with a little spoiling Kitty, like on special occasions and stuff. I’m afraid that if you treat me like this everyday, I’ll start taking it, or you for granted.”

“That’ll never happen Princess.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it, “besides, everyday with you will be a special occasion for me.”

“Adrien, sweetheart,” he blushed slightly at the new nickname as his face lit up with joy, “I feel the same way, but you’ll have to tone down the romance for me sometimes though.”

He looked worried as he turned to get a better view of her, “did I do something wrong Mari?”

She chuckled, “no! You’ve done everything right!” She straightened the lapels on his coat distractedly, “I… I just get overwhelmed easily and honestly, I don’t know how I’m not a puddle of goo at your feet right now.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, “I didn’t know that I had that claw-ful effect on you Milady!”

Marinette groaned, “and you just had to ruin it with the puns.” She nudged him, “but you wouldn’t be you without them.”

He nodded in agreement. “So true. Puns balance out the romance, do they not?” He watched her for her reaction as he said, “mon amour?”

She blushed and then she leaned in and they exchanged a quick kiss.

For the next twenty minutes, they snuggled and enjoyed the slow and romantic ride to the Eiffel tower in each other’s arms.

…

They met Adrien’s bodyguard at the tower, he had followed their horse drawn carriage all the way to the tower in Adrien’s usual car.

Nathalie had vetoed the limo, which Marinette was fine with as she said good bye to the horses since it was getting late for them and they could be driven home in the car.

Adrien of course romantically knelt in front of her with the tower as a back drop as he gave his girlfriend a diamond bracelet to remember their first date as he officially asked her to be his girlfriend once more.

She almost tackled him after she jumped up and proclaimed “Adrien yes. Forever yes!”

Then she whispered, “you’ve already made my dreams come true by being both of you, as if I could ever forget tonight.” She told him as she helped him off of the ground and they kissed gently once more.

Adrien then had the Gorilla take a few pictures of them and then they took a couple of selfies. Including Marinette’s favorite, where he held the phone out as he surprised her and kissed her on the cheek.

They looked through the photos as they rode the elevator to the restaurant, “send me every single one Kitty!” She directed.

“As you wish my Lady.” Adrien sent them to her with a few taps to his phone before he put it away, “but that last one of us will be my new background.” He announced proudly.

“Mine too Chaton, mine too.”

…

Dinner was exquisite. It was a four-star restaurant after all, and the view was amazing. Not as amazing as their perch that was higher on the tower, but the comfortable seats and ambiance was worth it.

“Hey guys.” Anton walked up to their table as their dinner was coming to a close. He waved his hands in apology, “Why am I not surprised to find you two together?”

“What are you doing here?” Marinette asked suspiciously, “are you up to something?”

“Nothing of the sort!” Anton waved it off, “you won that round fair and square. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ll keep this brief.” He then nodded to a table a few tables down from them and they noticed Adrien’s actress friend sitting there waiting for them as she waved hello.

“I just wanted to thank you guys, she’s just amazing and thanks for introducing us. She’d come over to thank you herself, but she’s kind of lost her voice.”

They all shared a brief laugh, “if this works out, we should double sometime.” Anton hinted as he looked from one happy teen to the other, “but probably at a less extravagant place, yeah?”

“Sure.” Adrien agreed, “next time the pizza is on you.”

“Please, I’m classier than that.” Anton waved Adrien off, “I know the best burger joint around! It even has a drive through.” They had a laugh. “Still, thanks for all of this.” He looked back at his date. “You know, I think she may be the one.”

“Already?” Marinette asked.

“You know, sometimes you just know.” Anton sighed, “well, I’ve got a hot date to get to. Thanks for tonight by the way Adrien, and for introducing us.”

“No problem, have a good night.” Adrien replied.

“Night!” Marinette waved Anton off, eager to have Adrien all to herself again.

Anton nodded and waved as he left, “night!”

“I hope it’s okay that I paid for their date tonight, I kind of figured that I owed them.” Adrien informed her.

Marinette smiled, “I think it’s sweet. She’s going to remember tonight forever, if they wind up together that is.”

“Like us?” Adrien asked suavely as he took her hand and kissed the back of it once more.

“That remains to be seen Kitty.” She grinned.

His face fell as she chuckled quietly. “I meant if they got married Chaton, I think we’re a little young to make that kind of commitment, although, I have to say that I’m not opposed to the idea.”

Adrien’s face lit up with glee as he answered, “I look forward to it!”

…

They took a romantic stroll, followed not so closely by Adrien’s bodyguard, until they found Andre the ice cream man and his cart as he was about to close up for the night. They got a couple’s ice cream this time and happily shared as they sat on a bench enjoying the late hour.

…

Saying goodnight wasn’t easy.

Gorilla allowed Adrien to walk Marinette to her door alone and they stumbled over how to say goodnight.

“I-I had a wonderful time tonight Adrien.” Marinette started, “you’re going to have trouble topping that.” She gave him a playful smirk.

“I am more than willing to keep trying until I get it purr-fect My Lady, My Princess, My Marinette.” Adrien gave her a kiss with each nickname, on her forehead and one on each cheek.

“I never knew you were such a purr-fectionist my sweet Chaton.”

He held her close, touched by the use of a pun, “marry me Mari.” He whispered.

She blushed and kissed him gently on the lips, “it’s too soon Kitty,” she lovingly whispered back to him.

He frowned as if she was saying no.

She clarified, “I didn’t say no Minou. I said not yet.” She gave him another peck, “patience mon amour. Good things come to those who wait.”

“I’ll wait forever for you Princess.” Adrien whispered as he leaned his forehead against her own, unwilling to let her go just yet.

“We need to grow up first silly.” She giggled as she kissed him once more then added as she leaned away, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Can I give you a ride to school?” He offered.

“It’s a short walk Adrien.”

He leaned in and gave her a peck on the lips, “but we can’t kiss while we walk.”

“That’s a theory to be tested later.” She teased.

He looked at her questioningly, “Promise?”

“Sure, but in the meantime, I’ll take you up on that offer another day. How about I meet you at school? At twenty till? We don't want to shock Alya and Nino too much do we?"

He shrugged, “maybe, but as you wish, I’ll be there Princess.” He bowed and kissed her hand before letting go and waving goodbye.

“See you tomorrow, My Lady Love.”

“See you tomorrow, My Kitty Cat.” She blew him a kiss and he grinned at her and blew one back before he got back in the car.

Marinette sighed to herself as she whispered, “I love that cat.”

Then she noticed him grinning at her from his open window, he must have heard her as he waited for her to go inside. He mouthed, “I love you too, My Lady.”

She blushed tomato red as she turned and unlocked her door and went inside, finding her Maman sitting and reading a book upside down. “Waiting up for me Maman?” She asked suspiciously.

“Oh no, just enjoying this wonderful book.” She closed it and then asked, “how was your night sweetie?”

Marinette leaned against the door and sighed, “It was purr-fect.” She closed her eyes and then added wistfully, “I’m going to marry that boy!”

Sabine grinned as she walked over and kissed her daughter on the forehead, “I know you are sweetie, I know you are.” Then she patted her cheek and headed off to bed as she called back to her daughter, “get some sleep now, I’m sure your boyfriend is eager to see you at school tomorrow!”

“Maman!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been a fun ride, thank you everyone for reading. I have two more chapters for this that I've yet to finish editing, one is an epilogue to capture everyone's reactions and finally a bonus chapter with shorts (most of them funny or silly) that come from this universe.


	17. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when Adrien arrives first to school and finds that their date wasn't as private as he had thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the grand finale where we find out what happens the next day at school. 
> 
> There are some references to season 3 episode 1, the Chameleon episode, but nothing that spoils it I think, just that Lila's back and she lies, alot, but we already know that from her previous appearances in the show. The really angsty stuff that happened in that episode I glossed over here just to focus on this story line anyway. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Adrien arrived early to school like always the next day and Chloe met him just as he exited the car.

“Well, I’m glad to see that you’ve finally seen what is in front of you Adrikins!” She exclaimed as she gave him a quick hug without a kiss today.

“Uh, thanks?” He answered confused.

She pulled out a newspaper and slapped it into his hands. “You and your girlfriend are front page news.” Then she got uncomfortably close and pleaded, “can I tell her?” She batted her eyes at him, “PLEASE?”

“Tell her…who… what?”  As he opened the paper and saw a picture of himself holding Marinette as she straightened his tie as they prepared to take the picture for her parents from a different angle in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was actually quite romantic with the Eiffel tower behind them as a backdrop.

Adrien was just thankful that they didn’t use the shot of him kneeling before her as he presented her with the diamond bracelet that he had picked out for her, as he asked her to officially be his girlfriend. That might have been taken out of context.

He flipped open the paper to the main article, hoping that the full-page picture on the front was the only picture, and nope. Adrien never was that lucky.

There were a lot of photographs. Professional level photographs.

One was of him kneeling before Marinette, her grinning just before she screamed yes with the bracelet box out just as he had feared.

Then there was one of him spinning her around afterwards in celebration in a very romantic way. There was also one of them eating at the restaurant, going on a walk with the Gorilla not too far behind and then another with them stopping at Andre’s, who was just closing up shop, as if he had been waiting for them.

There was another photo where her head was resting on his shoulder on a bench as they rested during their walk and there were two where they each had given each other a kiss on the cheek. Thankfully the angle wasn’t right on the one where his kissed her on the lips goodnight.

Adrien sighed, the memories wouldn’t let him be angry, “hey can I keep this?” He asked Chloe.

“Of course, Adrikins! I’ve got the negatives and I can get you prints too, I hired the photographer to follow you both after all.” She waved it off like it was nothing.

“Wait, how did the paper get these then?” He asked her with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I know how you are Adrikins,” She inspected her nails for a moment, “I know that you thought a few photos with a cell phone would be enough for my best friend, but I wanted the best for you. I also knew that you were up to something last night when you asked about the proper jewelry to give a girlfriend on your first big date earlier.”

“That still doesn’t explain why the paper has these.” He tried to be seriously upset, but the grin that he was failing to hide betrayed him. He loved the photos after all.

Chloe rolled her eyes, “I know, I know. You wanted to proclaim it to the world yourself, but I understand the media Adrikins, they would have hounded you within an inch of your life to get even one photo like one of these.” She tapped the paper, “this way every photo was approved by me, and her mother, and yes I called Mrs. Dupain-Cheng. I texted her the photos and explained my reasoning etc. She gave her approval. This way they can’t hound you to get a romantic photo with your girlfriend, because of all of these.”

“Did they pay you for these?” He asked warily.

Chloe shrugged an affirmative. “Well, I did take a small commission, to pay the photographer of course, but the rest I sent to Mrs. Dupain-Cheng because I wouldn’t have it any other way. Your girlfriend needed her own nest egg and her mother will take care of that for her.”

“Chloe, I can’t believe you.” Adrien almost whined. “Marinette isn’t going to like this.”

“Oh, she’ll get over it Adrikins! Besides, SHE can’t deny it now. Can I tell her? Please? Pretty please?!” Chloe put her hands together and begged Adrien.

But he had no idea what she was talking about again.

“Oh, please Adrikins!” Chloe tossed her hair and waved her arm, “don’t tell me that you’re not aware of the rumors that she’s been spreading! I haven’t said anything before because I know how non-confrontational you are but now this just nips her stories in the bud! I mean why else would you take out Dupain-Cheng unless you were SERIOUS about her?”

Adrien didn’t know how to respond, Chloe knew how he felt about Marinette, she’d heard him rant about how much he liked her the other day after all, sworn to secrecy of course after she gave him the advice about the diamond jewelry.

Chloe smirked and then chuckled as she continued to rant. “That article has a twelve-picture spread! Your father must really like her because that’s not the only article about your date. Of course, I did all of this with his permission too and out of the kindness of my own heart, but I only contacted the one paper. It’s in every single major newspaper in some shape or form now! Come on, please let me tell her Adrikins! Please! Please! Please! It’ll make my day, my week and maybe even my month!” She gushed.

Adrien still had absolutely no idea who she was talking about. “Who are you talking about Chloe?”

He knew that Marinette would probably be embarrassed if anything about these photographs, or the fact that they were paid for. But he knew his Lady, she’d get over it if it bothered her eventually. He hated to admit it though, Chloe was right. He knew that Marinette claimed that she was ready for the media fallout last night over dinner because he had warned her it would come once news got out about their being together. He just didn’t know Chloe would be behind it, or he guessed the one that would try to get ahead of it.

“Why…” Chloe then looked over his shoulder and smiled broadly like the cat that ate the canary or even better, as the Bee that had just found a free stash of honey as she snickered. “Well, I guess I’m too late.”

Adrien turned to see Lila Rossi, the girl that he knew was a perpetual liar and had just come back to school recently from her supposed trip to Achu. She had been a constant and flirtatious thorn in his side of late and right now she was stalking up to him like she was about to murder him.

“Lila? What the….” Adrien was cut off as she slapped his face.

Chloe charged forward and slapped her back. “You do not touch my Adrikins!”

Adrien just stood there in shock.

Lila put on the water works as she rubbed her face, “he’s the one that was leading me on! He’s been seeing me secretly and sending me gifts for months, calling me his girlfriend and for him to turn on me with that… that baker tramp!”

“Excuse me?” Marinette’s cold authoritive Ladybug voice loudly spoke over the crowd that was gathering to watch. Marinette walked up to Adrien and looked closely at his face, the handprint from Lila’s strike glaring at her from his pale and slightly tanned cheek. She gently caressed his cheek to help it go away with her hand and he leaned into her touch with a sweet smile as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

Alya and Rose squealed at the unspoken yet romantic gestures. Chloe smirked as she checked out her nails again. Nino sent Adrien a thumbs up.

Without even looking at her, Marinette spoke to her self-imposed rival. “Lila, Adrien is not and has never been your boyfriend. He’s not the kind of guy that would want to keep his girlfriend secret because he’s romantic and wants to dote on the people that he loves, especially his girlfriend.” Marinette said as she waved her other hand at her, a decidedly sparkly new diamond bracelet attesting to the fact that he’d given her more than just the outfit and the flowers last night.

“That’s right. Just wait until you go to the mall with him Marinette, you’ll have to stop him from buying you more than he can carry.” Chloe boasted, “I’ve taught him right after all.”

Adrien blushed at what to him was a compliment.

“Uh, thanks Chloe.” Marinette muttered as Lila seethed, surprised at her new ally, before Marinette turned towards Chloe slightly. “Although next time, please tell him one nice bouquet will do, he didn’t need to buy out the whole store for me.” She then smiled at her boyfriend after saying that teasingly.

“Actually, not that it matters, but it was two stores and our first date was a special occasion, so it was totally understandable for me to go just a little over the top, but who’s counting the reasons why I should spoil my Princess?” Adrien smirked.

Marinette pouted a little as she looked at his cheek again, the red mark having nearly faded completely away thanks to her ministrations, then she looked at Lila as she let go of his face. “Besides, what kind of girl would hit a guy like this if she truly loved him?” She glanced back at Adrien before drawing him down for a sweet but quick peck on the lips, to the hoots and hollers of their classmates.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to stop her Adrien,” she apologized as he nodded at her and smiled before she addressed Chloe, “thank you for coming to his defense for us Chloe.”

“Anytime Dupain-Cheng, shall I take out the trash?” Chloe brushed up her sleeves as if preparing for a fight but after a second thought, she whipped out her phone, “or should I just call someone? Trash like this isn’t worth getting my hands dirty over after all.”

Finally finding her words Lila screamed, “but-but he’s my boyfriend! He’s only pretending to be with you because… because his father wants someone…someone with the… the right image!”

“Are you saying that you don’t have the right image Lila? What a shame.” Chloe commented, “though I’m not surprised.”

Lila fumed, “I’m telling you that he has been my secret boyfriend for months!”

Nino and Alya walked out of the ranks of the crowd with wide grins on their faces as Nino spoke up, “that is so not true dude! I’m his best bud and while he’s been crushing on a girl for months now, she wasn’t you. She actually sounded like my gurl’s bestie here, dark hair and blue eyes and all, but I could never get him to admit to it.” Nino smirked at his friends.

“Thanks Nino.” Adrien nodded, as he wrapped his arm around Marinette even tighter as a news van pulled up, Adrien sighed, thankful that his cheek probably didn’t have a trace of the handprint on it anymore.

“I had hoped that we could have waited on all of this. I wanted to keep you to myself for at least a day.” He whispered to Marinette with her only shaking her head at him.

“Well, there is no time like the present.” She replied as she glanced at the fuming Lila and then whispered, “I think that I just need to go and powder my nose really quick, for the cameras.” She gave him a quick wink and he nodded with a sigh.

“I’ll get the press conference together and get started then.” He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it before letting her go, the flashes of multiple cameras going off before she quickly walked away. “See you soon Princess.”

Marinette left and Adrien gathered the press around him to answer their questions.

“Are those pictures of you and Miss Dupain-Cheng together genuine?”

“Of course.”

“Are you now off the market Adrien?”

Adrien grinned at that, “yes, and happily so!”

“Where did your girlfriend go Adrien?”

Adrien blushed slightly as he rubbed the back of his neck, “oh, she just wanted to powder her nose for the camera, she’ll be right back!”

“Here I am!” Lila threw herself at Adrien as he dodged her grasp and she staggered for a moment before falling into a large puddle left over from an early morning rain.

“Ughhh!” Lila screamed and pumped her legs angrily like a toddler that was just denied their treat as a little black butterfly came floating her way.

“Akuma!” Someone shrieked as everyone started to run away in a panic.

Then there was the zip of a familiar yo-yo as Ladybug captured the akuma, purified it and released it.

The cameras were back on and documenting the whole thing when Lila interrupted.

“Ladybug!” Lila stood up and growled at the heroine, “you ruin everything!”

“Is that anyway to talk to your best friend Lila?” Alya asked as she filmed this for her blog, “first you lie about being involved with Adrien here to everyone but me and my boyfriend who knew better and now you’re acting like Ladybug is your enemy, not the friend that you claim her to be. Can you explain yourself?”

Chloe looked on smugly as if this was all her idea.

Lila stewed as she tried to think of a way out of this one.

Ladybug only nodded and added, “you must remember that Lila has lied before, she once claimed to be a miraculous holder, and no, we’re really not friends. I don’t even know what her favorite color is.”

Ladybug knew that probably would have been enough, but even she couldn’t help adding, “I really wouldn’t trust her if I were you.”

Lila then yelled angrily and stalked away, dripping puddle water as she went.

Adrien called out to his heroine girlfriend, “hey, Ladybug, thanks for your help. Did you happen to see my girlfriend on the way over here? Her name is Marinette, she’s practically a model herself she’s so gorgeous and she’s supposed to be back by now.” He couldn’t help the small smirk on his face.

Ladybug fought the urge to roll her eyes at him as she nodded towards him and threw out her yo-yo to latch onto something, “I’ll see if I can find her and send her back. Congratulations by the way.”

“Hey, I’m the lucky one this time. Thanks!” He brushed the back of his neck as she flew away, only for Marinette to arrive at his side a minute later, finding the reporters and cameramen gathered together again to get their story.

Marinette ran over to Adrien and he wrapped his arm around her gratefully as she loudly apologized, “I’m so sorry Adrien, the crowd pushed me back when the akuma showed up so I ran and hid until Ladybug could take care of it.”

“That’s fine Marinette, I’m just glad that you’re safe.” He kissed her forehead and she blushed just a bit as more cameras flashed.

“So, what are your plans now Adrien and Marinette?” One reporter asked, “do you have a happily ever after in mind?”

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed as he gazed in his girlfriend’s eyes, “happily ever after sounds like a good place to start.”

 

~ fin ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few short bonuses to go with this story and they'll be chapter 18. I hope to have it out by the end of this weekend. 
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and support everyone!
> 
> P.S. If you're looking for a similar silly / fun story, check out my other two stories,   
> 'Kwami Sitting' or maybe even   
> 'Temper Tantrum' if you haven't already.


	18. Short Bonuses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some short, somewhat random bonuses that would happen after this story.

Two month Anniversary

Adrien and Marinette had been dating for two months now and he was finally able to sneak her into his room to play the newest version of Ultimate Mega Strike VI.

“Wow Adrien, I almost forgot how big your room is.”

“Yeah,” he brushed the back of his neck nervously.

Then she took a sniff and coughed, “Adrien, what is that smell?”

(thank you Draxynnic for the reminder about the stinky cheese.)

 

At Anton’s and Adrien’s model/actress friend’s wedding reception two years later

“I’d like to propose a toast!” Anton’s best friend announced, “to the lovely couple and especially to Anton. May you never, never, EVER antagonize your wife for she is vicious and she will tear your head off!”

“Not unlike a certain Lady I know.” Adrien teasingly whispered to his girlfriend.

“Oh hush.” Marinette whispered back. “I’d just throw you across the city.”

“Again.”

She snickered prettily, “just listen Kitty.” Adrien rolled his eyes and hugged his girlfriend.

“Don’t I know it!” Anton had answered loudly back, “but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He looked lovingly at his wife. “She’s my favorite banshee!”

His wife smacked him lightly on the shoulder teasingly as she laughed at the title, “hey, we sold our story and paid for the wedding with it, so how can I be upset?”

“Don’t forget the Honeymoon!” Anton proudly proclaimed, “all thanks to ‘My New Banshee Girlfriend’!”

His wife grinned madly, “yeah, it paid for that too, and we got to play ourselves, I was hoarse for a week!”

Anton shrugged, “yeah I finally got some peace and quiet!”

“Anton!” His wife shrieked and the whole audience cringed as half of the people fell off their chairs from the shock from the sound and a few people accidentally called the authorities to report an akuma attack.

The two heroes were the only ones snickering at first, as everyone else eventually joined in to laugh about it.

Apparently, all that work on their movie made Anton’s wife’s voice stronger and frightening enough for her to be mistaken as a real akuma.

Go figure.

 

When Adrien Finally Moved Out

“Well, I guess that’s about it.” Adrien commented as he glanced around the room after the movers took what he decided to keep.

His father stood in the entryway and glanced around, already missing his son.

Then he took a hesitant sniff and coughed, “Adrien, what is that smell?”

 

When Alya sees too much

It was finally here. Adrien and Marinette’s Wedding day.

Alya let herself into the bridal suite her arms full of stuff to help get the bride ready.

She put her stuff down on a side table then looked for the bride. They only had three hours to get ready after all.

Marinette having arrived earlier was in the bedroom and apparently hadn’t heard Alya, because she was wearing a robe and kissing someone that was sitting on the edge of the windowsill.

Alya froze… at first, because as she began to inhale a massive lungful of air for the soon to be deafening scream that was about to be released, she noticed the ears and wheezed instead, totally caught off guard. The ears turned in her direction as the kiss ended and Marinette turned towards her bestie, with a red-faced Chat Noir bashfully grinning at her over Marinette’s shoulder having been caught kissing the bride as more than just a friend just before her wedding.

It was at that moment that all the clues over the years fell into place.

It didn’t hurt that it had been more than obvious that Chat Noir and Ladybug were growing closer over the past few months and they ended each fight when they were on their own with a kiss and Alya knew from filming them and fighting beside them over the years as Rena Rouge that the cat would never jeopardize his relationship with his Lady and as her bestie she knew that Marinette would never hurt Adrien. That could only mean a few things.

Chat Noir was Adrien.

Because Adrien was marrying Marinette.

But that meant that Marinette was Ladybug.

Which meant that Chat Noir and Ladybug were getting married!

After squealing for a straight ten minutes, Alya finally calmed down and said with a joyous voice, “Gurl, you have SO much explaining to do!”

But then she turned on Chat Noir and practically growled, “YOU! We’re a team for crying out loud and I can’t believe you invoked your rotten luck on your wedding day! Good thing she’s not in the dress yet!”

Adrien blinked then looked at his fiancée, as he waved from them to Alya and back, “wait… we’re a team?”

Alya groaned as she stalked over to him, “you have one hour to tell Nino about this, because you’ve got to get ready for the wedding. Otherwise I’d roast you alive! We’ve wasted precious minutes here!”

“Alya?” Marinette meekly asked, “are you okay with this?”

“Am I okay? I’m great! My favorite superhero is my favorite best friend and superhero partner! I’ll freak out later, it’s time to get you ready!”

“Uh…” Adrien tried to interject.

Alya rolled her eyes, “keep up Tomcat. I’m Rena, Nino’s Carapace and I’m sure he’d like to hear who you are from you himself because if you don’t tell him I WILL! One hour. GO!” Then she pushed Adrien out the window.

Thankfully he was wearing his super suit and the room was only on the third floor so he managed to land on his feet, more or less.

 

When Adrien revealed his secret identity to Nino

After Nino had gained his miraculous permanently and started to share in the patrol duties usually held by Ladybug and Chat Noir, along with other members of their team, he was told by Chat Noir how he broke the ice as it were with his Lady. More importantly, Chat told him how Tikki, Ladybug’s kwami had let him know who his Lady was first, with the use of Facetime of, mentioning the important fact that kwami can’t be caught on camera.

Then he told Carapace how he revealed his secret identity to her with a similar Facetime call, except his kwami had to eat Camembert instead since that was his favorite food.

Carapace had laughed at the story and told him, “Dude, if you ever decide it’s time to tell me who you are, come up with something else, please.”

Chat Noir only replied, “paw-lease. That was totally original.”

“Dude, it’s been done, by you.”

Chat Noir shrugged it off and decided to take a more traditional route to tell Nino his secret identity eventually. However, Alya’s wrath had sped up his timeline and now he had only an hour maybe to tell his best friend before his wife, Alya, did.

Adrien of course apparently called his best bud on Facetime, with Plagg floating in front of the screen eating a large wheel of cheese one bite at a time.

Plagg just said with a full mouth, “Wook be-ind you Ude.” Which was really strange to hear from a floating wheel of cheese.

Nino blinked, as someone tapped him on the shoulder. Looking over at the intruder, he saw Adrien grinning as he pointed back at the screen, pointing out his name at the top of the screen as another piece of the cheese disappeared.

Nino’s jaw fell open briefly in astonishment before he asked Adrien who now stood at his side, “Dude, is that Camembert?

Adrien nodded, “yep!”

Nino shook his head slightly at his best bro and with a roll of his eyes as he sighed, not believing that he was about to say this, but say it he did as he offered his fist for them to bump fists. “Clawsome!”

Adrien almost died laughing at his delivery as he returned the fist bump.

 

Later In the car as they rode away from the chapel in a limo after exchanging vows.

With the privacy divider up, Tikki gave Marinette and Adrien a cookie, “something sweet for you to share!” She chirped.

Plagg tossed Adrien a piece of Camembert with a bow on it at Adrien. “Congratulations I guess.”

“Ugh, Plagg, get that away! We don’t want to smell for the reception!” Adrien handed it back.

“Or the honeymoon.” Marinette added, smirking at her husband as he blushed ever so lightly.

“You wish is my command.” Plagg swallowed the cheese, bow and all. “I was going to get you something more special, but someone revoked my internet privileges.” He glared at Adrien.

“You’re banned from Cheese Stores and websites, nothing more.” Adrien defended as he hugged his wife with the widest grin ever.

“It’s the same thing.” Plagg deadpanned before he wistfully sighed, “Ah well, someday I’ll see my lost lover once again.”

Tikki rolled her eyes, “you and your cheese.”

“That’s right Sweetness!”

Tikki shook her head and then hid in Marinette’s purse, only for Plagg to join her as she muttered, “scoot over you Stinky Sock!”

“Oh, Sugarcube! You don’t have to butter me up!” He sighed as he snuggled into her, Tikki groaned before finally returned his cuddle.

 

When Adrien unpacked the foosball table 

Marinette and Adrien had been married for over two years and they had just moved to a much larger apartment, giving Adrien the opportunity to pull a few things out of storage from when he had left his father’s mansion a few years before. He was getting out some things for his new mancave.

As he proudly unwrapped his Foosball table, he was surprised when his pregnant wife coughed from the doorway and sounded like she was going to be sick.

He ran to her side, “Princess? Are you okay?”

Groaning Marinette asked, “Adrien, what is that smell?”

Plagg floated in and grinned as he inhaled deeply, “that Ladybug, is the sweet scent of success!” Then he went and pulled out a tiny piece of something rotten looking out of the table. “Ah, it’s still here.” He sighed, kissed it, snuggled it and then swallowed it whole.

Marinette ran to hurl into the nearest toilet after she caught another whiff of the long dead cheese as Adrien groused, on the verge of throwing up himself, “Plagg! I’m going to have to toss that thing out now!”

Meanwhile Tikki had flown in, saw Plagg’s personal moment with his cheese and glared as she loudly declared, “now you, Mister Stinky Sock are going to go and take a bath and then help clean that game up!”

Plagg grinned at his other half and answered easily with breath that could kill, “Totally worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for the great comments and kudos!
> 
> Other similar funny stories by Lady_LB are
> 
> [ Kwami Sitting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361612/chapters/38287628)  
> \- Where Chat sees Tikki in Marinette 's room and asks if she is Kwami Sitting.  
> And a slightly cuter earlier work of mine
> 
> [Temper Tantrum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14944571%22)  
> \- Where a little kid gets akumatized because she wants a kitty for a pet but whose parents said she could only have one if he was like Chat Noir.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, this is just an idea that was itching to be written after seeing the Anansi episode of Miraculous Ladybug. (it's episode 18 of season 2, but this story could probably fit anywhere mid season 2)
> 
> I was going to leave this as a stand-alone (chapter 1 only) but there was so much interest in it (over 160 kudos in less than 2 days? wow!) I'll be continuing it with at least a chapter or 2, but I'm going to take my time with it.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and support & thanks for reading!


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